LEO STRAUSS
THE CITY
AND MAN
er
The University of Chicago Press
Ciicago and London
Preface
This study is an enlarged version of the Page-Barbour Lectures
which I delivered at the University of Virginia in the Spring of
1962. I am grateful to the Committee on the Page-Barbour Lectures
at the University of Virginia for having given me the opportunity
to develop my views on a rather neglected aspect of classical politi-
cal thought more fully than I otherwise might have done.
An earlier and shorter version of the lecture on Plato’s Republic
was published as a part of the chapter on Plato which I contributed
to the History of Political Philosophy, edited by Joseph Cropsey and
myseif (Rand McNally, 1963).
LS.
July, 1963
III
Table of Contents
Preface
INTRODUCTION
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
ON THUCYDIDES’ WAR OF
THE PELOPONNESIANS AND
THE ATHENIANS
Index
139
243
INTRODUCTION
It is not self-forgetting and pain-loving antiquarianism nor self-
forgetting and intoxicating romanticism which induces us to turn
with passionate interest, with unqualified willingness to learn, to-
ward the political thought of classical antiquity. We are impelled
to do so by the crisis of our time, the crisis of the West.
It is not sufficient for everyone to obey and to listen to the
Divine message of the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City. In
order to propagate that message among the heathen, nay, in order
to understand it as clearly and as fully as is humanly possible, one
must also consider to what extent man could discern the outlines of
that City if left to himself, to the proper exercise of his own powers.
But in our age it is much less urgent to show that political philoso-
phy is the indispensable handmaid of theology than to show that
political philosophy is the rightful queen of the social sciences, the
sciences of man and of human affairs: even the highest lawcourt
in the land is more likely to defer to the contentions of social science
than to the Ten Commandments as the words of the living God.
The theme of political philosophy is the City and Man. The City
and Man is explicitly the theme of classical political philosophy.
Modern political philosophy, while building on classical political
philosophy, transforms it and thus no longer deals with that theme
in its original terms. But one cannot understand the transformation,
however legitimate, if one has not understood the original form.
Modern political philosophy presupposes Nature as understood
by modern natural science and History as understood by the mod-
ern historical awareness. Eventually these presuppositions prove to
be incompatible with modern political philosophy. Thus one seems
to be confronted with the choice between abandoning political phi-
' losophy altogether and returning to classical political philosophy.
Yet such a return seems to be impossible. For what has brought
about the collapse of modern political philosophy seems to have
buried classical political philosophy which did not even dream of
1
THE CITY AND MAN
the difficulties caused by what we believe to know of nature and
history. Certain it is that a simple-continuation of the tradition of
classical political philosophy—of a tradition which was hitherto
never entirely interrupted—is no longer possible. As regards modern
political philosophy, it has been replaced by ideology: what origi-
nally was a political philosophy has turned into an ideology. This
fact may be said to form the core of the contemporary crisis of
the West.
That crisis was diagnosed at the time of World War I by Speng-
ler as the going down (or decline) of the West. Spengler under-
stood by the West one culture among a small number of high
cultures. But the West was for him more than one high culture
among a number of them. It was for him the comprehensive culture.
It is the only culture which has conquered the earth. Above all, it is
the only culture which is open to all cultures and which does not
reject the other cultures as forms of barbarism or which tolerates
them condescendingly as “underdeveloped”; it is the only culture
which has acquired full consciousness of culture as such. Whereas
“culture” originally and naively meant the culture of the mind, the.
derivative and reflective notion of “culture” necessarily implies that
there is a variety of equally high cultures. But precisely since the
West is the culture in which culture reaches full self-consciousness,
it is the final culture: the owl of Minerva begins its flight in the
dusk; the decline of the West is identical with the exhaustion of
the very possibility of high culture; the highest possibilities of man
are exhausted. But man’s highest possibilities cannot be exhausted
as long as there are still high human tasks—as long as the funda-
mental riddles which confront man, have not been solved to the
extent to which they can be solved. We may therefore say that
Spengler’s analysis and prediction is wrong: our highest authority,
natural science, considers itself susceptible of infinite progress, and
this claim does not make sense, it seems, if the fundamental riddles
are solved. If science is susceptible of infinite progress, there cannot
be a meaningful end or completion of history; there can only be a
brutal stopping of man’s onward march through natural forces act-
ing .by themselves or directed by human brains and hands.
However this may be, in one sense Spengler has proved to be
right; some decline of the West has taken place before our eyes. In
1913 the West—in fact this country together with Great Britain and
Germany—could have laid down the law for the rest of the earth
2
INTRODUCTION
without firing a shot. Surely for at least a century the West con-
trolled the whole globe with ease. Today, so far from ruling the
globe, the West's very survival is endangered by the East as it has
not been since its beginning. From the Communist Manifesto it
would appear that the victory of Communism would be the com-
plete victory of the West—of the synthesis, transcending the na-
tional boundaries, of British industry, the French Revolution and
German philosophy—over the East. We see that the victory of Com-
munism would mean indeed the victory of originally Western
natural science but surely at the same time the victory of the most
extreme form of Eastern despotism.
However much the power of the West may have declined, how-
ever great the dangers to the West may be, that decline, that
danger, nay, the defeat, even the destruction of the West would
not necessarily prove that the West is in a crisis: the West could go
down in honor, certain of its purpose. The crisis of the West consists
in the West's having become uncertain of its purpose. The West was
once certain of its purpose—of a purpose in which all men could be
united, and hence it had a clear vision of its future as the future
of mankind. We do no longer have that certainty and that clarity.
Some among us even despair of the future, and this despair explains
many forms of contemporary Western degradation. The foregoing
statements are not meant to imply that no society can be healthy
unless it is dedicated to a universal purpose, to a purpose in which
all men can be united: a society can be tribal and yet healthy. But
a society which was accustomed to understand itself in terms of a
universal purpose, cannot lose faith in that purpose without becom-
ing completely bewildered. We find such a universal purpose ex-
pressly stated in our immediate past, for instance in famous official
declarations made during the two World Wars. These declarations
merely restate the purpose stated originally by the most successful
form of modern political philosophy—a kind of that political phi-
losophy which aspired to build on the foundation laid by classical
political philosophy but in opposition to the structure erected by
classical political philosophy, a society superior in truth and justice
to the society toward which the classics aspired. According to the
modem project, philosophy or science was no longer to be under-
stan as essentially contemplative and proud but as active and
cbaritable; it was to be in the service of the relief of man’s estate;
it was to be cultivated for the sake of human power; it was to
3
THE CITY AND MAN
enable man to become the master and owner of nature through the
intellectual conquest of nature. Philosophy or science should make
possible progress toward ever greater prosperity; it thus should
enable everyone to share in all the advantages of society or life and
therewith give full effect to everyone's natural right to comfortable
self-preservation and all that that right entails or to everyone's nat-
ural right to develop all his faculties fully in concert with everyone
else’s doing the same. The progress toward ever greater prosperity
would thus become, or render possible, the progress toward ever
greater freedom and justice. This progress would necessarily be the
progress toward a society embracing equally all human beings: a
universal league of free and equal nations, each nation consisting of
free and equal men and women. For it had come to be believed that
the prosperous, free, and just society in a single country or in only
a few countries is not possible in the long run: to make the world
safe for the Western democracies, one must make the whole globe
democratic, each country in itself as well as the society of nations.
Good order in one country presupposes good order in all countries
and among all countries. The movement toward the universal so-
ciety or the universal state was thought to be guaranteed not only
by the rationality, the universal validity, of the goal but also because
the movement towards the goal seemed to be the movement of the
large majority of men on behalf of the large majority of men: only
small groups of men who, however, hold in thrall many millions of
their fellow human beings and who defend theix own antiquated
interests, resist that movement.
This view of the human situation in general and of the situation
in our century in particular retained a certain plausibility, not in
spite of Fascism but because of it, until Communism revealed itself
even to the meanest capacities as Stalinism and post-Stalinism, for
Trotskyism, being a flag without an army and even without a gen-
eral, is condemned or refuted by its own principle. For some time
it appeared to many teachable Westerners—to say nothing of the
unteachable ones—that Communism was only a parallel movement
to the Western movement—as it were its somewhat impatient, wild,
wayward twin who was bound to become mature, patient, and
gentle. But except when in mortal danger, Communism responded
to the fraternal greetings only with contempt or at most with mani-
festly dissembled signs of friendship; and when in mortal danger,
it was as eager to receive Western help as it was determined to give
4
INTRODUCTION
not even sincere words of thanks in return. It was impossible for
the Western movement to understand Communism as merely a new
version of that eternal reactionism against which it had been fight-
ing for centuries. It had to admit that the Western project which
had provided in its way against all earlier forms of evil could not
provide against the new form in speech or in deed. For some time
it seemed sufficient to say that while the Western movement agrees
with Communism regarding the goal—the universal prosperous
society of free and equal men and women—it disagrees with it
regarding the means: for Communism, the end, the common good
of the whole human race, being the most sacred thing, justifies any
means; whatever contributes to the achievement of the most sacred
end partakes of its sacredness and is therefore itself sacred; what-
ever hinders the achievement of that end is devilish. The murder of
Lumumba was described by a Communist as a reprehensible murder
by which he implied that there can be irreprehensible murders, like
the murder of Nagy. It came to be seen then that there is not only
a difference of degree but of kind between the Western movement
and Communism, and this difference was seen to concern morality,
the choice of means. In other words, it became clearer than it had
been for some time that no bloody or unbloody change of society
can eradicate the evil in man: as long as there will be men, there
will be malice, envy and hatred, and hence there cannot be a
society which does not have to employ coercive restraint. For the
same reason it could no longer be denied that Communism will
remain, as long as it lasts in fact and not merely in name, the iron
rule of a tyrant which is mitigated or aggravated by his fear of
palace revolutions. The only restraint in which the West can put
some confidence is the tyrant’s fear of the West’s immense military
power.
The experience of Communism has provided the Western move-
ment with a twofold lesson: a political lesson, a lesson regard-
ing what to expect and what to do in the foreseeable future, and a
lesson regarding the principles of politics. For the foreseeable future
there cannot be a universal state, unitary or federative. Apart from
the fact that there does not exist now a universal federation of
nations but only of those nations which are called peace-loving, the
federation that exists masks the fundamental cleavage. If that fed-
eration is taken too seriously, as a milestone on man’s onward
march toward the perfect and hence universal society, one is bound
5
THE CITY AND MAN
to take great risks supported by nothing but an inherited and per-
haps antiquated hope, and thus to endanger the very progress one
endeavors to’bring about. It is imaginable that in the face of the
danger of thermonuclear destruction, a federation, however incom-
plete, of nations outlaws wars, i.e. wars of aggression; but this
means that it acts on the assumption that all present boundaries
are just, i.c. in accordance with the self-determination of nations;
but this assumption is a pious fraud of which the fraudulence is
more evident than the piety. In fact, the only changes of present
boundaries for which there is any provision are those not disagree-
able to the Communists. One must also not forget the glaring dis-
proportion between the legal equality and the factual inequality of
the confederates. The factual inequality is recognized in the expres-
sion “underdeveloped nations.” The expression implies the resolve
to develop them fully, i.e. to make them either Communist or West-
ern, and this despite the fact that the West claims to stand for
cultural pluralism. Even if one would still contend that the Western
purpose is as universal as the Communist, one must rest satisfied
for the foreseeable future with a practical particularism. The situa-
tion resembles the one which existed during the centuries in which
Christianity and Islam each raised its universal claim but had to
be satisfied with uneasily coexisting with its antagonist. All this
amounts to saying that for the foreseeable future, political society
remains what it always has been: a partial or particular society
whose most urgent and primary task is its self-preservation and
whose highest task is its self-improvement. As for the meaning of
self-improvement, we may observe that the same experience which
has made the West doubtful of the viability of a world-society has
made it doubtful of the belief that affluence is the sufficient and
even necessary condition of happiness and justice: affluence does
not cure the deepest evils.
The doubt of the modern project is more than merely a strong
but vague feeling. It has acquired the status of scientific exactitude.
One may wonder whether there is a single social scientist left who
would assert that the universal and prosperous society constitutes
the rational solution of the human problem. For present-day
social science admits and even proclaims its inability to validate
any value-judgments proper. The teaching originated by modern
political philosophy in favor of the universal and prosperous society
has admittedly become an ideology—a teaching not superior in truth
6
INTRODUCTION
and justice to any other among the innumerable ideologies. Social
science which studies all ideologies is itself free from all ideological
biases, Through this Olympian freedom it overcomes the crisis of
our time. That crisis may destroy the conditions of social science:
it cannot affect the validity of its findings.
Social science has not always been as skeptical or restrained as
it has become during the last two generations. The change in the
character of social science is not unconnected with the change in
the status of the modern project. The modern project was originated
as required by nature (natural right), i.e. it was originated by phi-
losophers; the project was meant to satisfy in the most perfect
manner the most powerful natural needs of men: nature was to be
conquered for the sake of man who himself was supposed to possess
a nature, an unchangeable nature; the originators of the project
took it for granted that philosophy and science are identical. After
some time it appeared that the conquest of nature requires the
conquest of human nature and hence in the first place the question-
ing of the unchangeability of human nature: an unchangeable
human nature might set absolute limits to progress. Accordingly,
the natural needs of men could no longer direct the conquest of
nature; the direction had to come from reason as distinguished from
nature, from the rational Ought as distinguished from the neutral
Is. Thus philosophy (logic, ethics, esthetics) as the study of the
Ought or the norms became separated from science as the study
of the Is. The ensuing depreciation of reason brought it about that
while the study of the Is or science succeeded ever more in increas-
ing men’s power, one could no longer distinguish between the wise
or right and the foolish or wrong use of power. Science cannot
teach wisdom. There are still some people who believe that this
predicament will disappear when social science and psychology
catch up with physics and chemistry. This belief is wholly unreason-
able, for social science and psychology, however perfected, being
sciences, can only bring about a still further increase of man’s
power; they will enable men to manipulate man still better than
ever before; they will as little teach man how to use his power over
man or non-man as physics and chemistry do. The people who in-
dulge this hope have not grasped the bearing of the distinction
between facts and values.
The decay of political philosophy into ideology reveals itself
most obviously in the fact that in both research and teaching, politi-
.
THE. CITY AND MAN
cal philosophy has been replaced by the history of political philoso-
phy. This substitution can be excused as a well-meaning attempt to
prevent, or at least to delay, the burial of a great tradition. In fact
it is not merely a half measure but an absurdity: to replace political
philosophy by the history of political philosophy means to replace a
doctrine which claims to be true by a survey of more or less brilliant
errors. The discipline which takes the place of political philosophy
is the one which shows the impossibility of political philosophy.
That discipline is logic. What for the time being is still tolerated
under the name of history of political philosophy will find its place
within a rational scheme of research and teaching in footnotes to
' the chapters in logic textbooks which deal with the distinction
between factual judgments and value-judgments; those footnotes
will supply slow learners with examples of the faulty transition, by
which political philosophy stands or falls, from factual judgments
to value-judgments.
It would be wrong to believe that in the new dispensation the
place once occupied by political philosophy is filled entirely by logic
however enlarged. A considerable part of the matter formerly
treated by political philosophy is now treated by a non-philosophic
political science which forms part of social science. This new politi-
cal science is concerned with discovering laws of political behavior
and ultimately universal laws of political behavior. Lest it mistake
the peculiarities of the politics of the time and the places in which
social science is at home for the character of all politics, it must
study also the politics of other climes and other ages. The new
political science thus becomes dependent on a kind of study which
belongs to the comprehensive enterprise called universal history. It
is controversial whether history can be modelled on the natural
science on which the new political science aspires to be modelled.
At any rate, the historical studies in which the new political science
must engage must become concerned not only with the working of
institutions but with the ideologies informing those institutions as
well. Within the context of these studies, the meaning of an ideol-
ogy is primarily the meaning in which its adherents understand it.
In some cases the ideologies are known to have been originated
by outstanding men. In such cases it becomes necessary to consider
whether and how the ideology as conceived by the originator was
modified by the adherents. For precisely if only the crude under-
standing of ideologies can be politically effective, it is necessary to
8
INTEODUCPION
grasp the characteristics of crudity: if the routinization of charisma
is a permitted theme, the vulgarization of thought ought to be a
permitted theme. One kind of ideology consists of the teachings of
the political philosophers. These teachings may have played only
a minor political role, but one cannot know this before one knows
them solidly. This solid. knowledge consists primarily in understand-
ing the teachings of the political philosophers as they themselves
meant them. Each of them was undoubtedly mistaken in believing
that his teaching is the true and final teaching regarding political
things: we know through a reliable tradition that this belief forms
part of a rationalization; but the process of rationalization is not so
thoroughly understood that it would not be worthwhile to study
it in the case of the greatest minds; for all we know there may be
various kinds of rationalization. It is then necessary to study the
political philosophies as they were understood by their originators
in contradistinction to the way in which they were understood by
their adherents, and various kinds of their adherents, but also by
their adversaries and even by detached or indifferent bystanders
or historians. For indifference does not offer a sufficient protection
against the danger that one identifies the view of the originator with
a compromise between the views of his adherents and those of his
adversaries. The genuine understanding of the political philosophies
which is then necessary may be said to have been rendered possible
by the shaking of all traditions; the crisis of our time may have the
accidental advantage of enabling us to understand in an untradi-
tional or fresh manner what was hitherto understood only in a tra-
ditional or derivative manner. This may apply especially to classical
political philosophy which has been seen for a considerable time
only through the lenses of modern political philosophy and its
various successors,
Social science will then not live up to its claim if it does not
concern itself with a genuine understanding of the political philoso-
phies proper and therewith primarily of classical political philos-
ophy. As has been indicated, such an understanding cannot be
presumed to be available. It is frequently asserted today that such
an understanding is not possible: aJl historical understanding is
relative to the point of view of the historian, in particular to his
country and his time; the historian cannot understand a teaching
as it was meant by its originator but he necessarily understands it
differently than its originator understood it; ordinarily the historian’s
9
THE CITY AND MAN
understanding is inferior to the originator’s understanding; in the
best case the understanding will be a creative transformation of |
the original understanding. Yet it is hard to see how one can speak
of a creative transformation of the original teaching if it is not
possible to grasp the original teaching as such. Besides, one may
grant that the initial point of view of the historian who studies a
teaching expounded in the past necessarily differs from that of the ,
originator of the teaching or, in other words, that the question
which the historian addresses to his author necessarily differs from
the question which his author attempted to answer; yet surely the
primary duty of the historian consists in suspending his initial ques-
tion in favor of the question with which his author is concerned
or in learning to look at the subject matter in question from his
author's point of view. To the extent to which the social scientist
succeeds in this kind of study which is imposed on him by the
requirements of social science, he not only enlarges the horizon of
present-day social science, he even transcends the limitations of
social science, for he learns to look at things in a manner which
is as it were forbidden to the social scientist. He will have learned
from his logic that his science rests on certain hypotheses, certain-
ties or assumptions. He learns now to suspend these assumptions.
He is thus compelled to make these assumptions his theme. Far
from being merely one of the innumerable themes of social science,
history of political philosophy, and not logic, proves to be the
pursuit concerned with the presuppositions of social science.
Those presuppositions prove to be modifications of the principles
of modern political philosophy, and these principles in turn prove
to be modifications of the principles of classical political philosophy.
One cannot understand the presuppositions of present-day social
science without a return to classical political philosophy. Social
science claims to be decisively superior to classical political phi-
losophy which surely lacked the alleged insight into the radical
difference between facts and values. When attempting to under-
stand classical political philosophy on its own terms, the social
scientist is compelled to wonder whether the distinction is as
necessary or as evident as it seems today. He is compelled to wonder
whether not present-day social science but classical political phi-
losophy is the true science of political things. This suggestion is
dismissed out of hand because a return to an earlier position is
believed to be impossible. But one must realize that this belief is
10
INTEBEODUCTION
a dogmatic assumption whose hidden basis is the belief in progress
or in the rationality of the historical process.
The return to classical political philosophy is both necessary and
tentative or experimental. Not in spite but because of its tentative
character, it must be carried out seriously, i.e. without squinting at
our present predicament. There is no danger that we can ever be-
come oblivious of this predicament since it is the incentive to our
whole concern with the classics. We cannot reasonably expect that a
fresh understanding of classical political philosophy will supply us
with recipes for today’s use. For the relative success of modern
political philosophy has brought into being a kind of society wholly
unknown to the classics, a kind of society to which the classical
principles as stated and elaborated by the classics are not imme-
diately applicable. Only we living today can possibly find a solution
to the problems of today. But an adequate understanding of the
principles as elaborated by the classics may be the indispensable
starting point for an adequate analysis, to be achieved by us, of
present-day society in its peculiar character, and for the wise
application, to be achieved by us, of these principles to our tasks.
One can come to doubt the fundamental premise of present-day
social science—the distinction between values and facts—by merely
considering the reasons advanced in its support as well as the con-
sequences following from it. These considerations lead one to see
that the issue concerning that distinction is part of a larger issue.
The distinction is alien to that understanding of political things
which belongs to political life but it becomes necessary, it seems,
when the citizens’ understanding of political things is replaced by
the scientific understanding. The scientific understanding implies
then a break with the pre-scientific understanding, yet at the same
time it remains dependent on the pre-scientific understanding. Re-
gardless of whether the superiority of the scientific understanding
to the pre-scientific understanding can be demonstrated or not, the
scientific understanding is secondary or derivative. Hence, social
science cannot reach clarity about its doings if it does not possess a
coherent and comprehensive understanding of what is frequently
called the common sense view of political things, i.e. if it does not
primarily understand the political things as they are experienced
by the citizen or statesman; only if it possesses such a coherent and
comprehensive understanding of its basis or matrix can it possibly
show the legitimacy, and make intelligible the character, of that
11
THE CITY AND MAN
peculiar modification of the primary understanding of | political
things which is their scientific understanding. We contend that that
coherent and comprehensive understanding of political things is
available to us in Aristotle's Politics precisely because the Politics
contains the original form of political science: that form in which
political science is nothing other than the fully conscious form of
the common sense understanding of political things. Classical politi-
cal philosophy is the primary form of political science because the
common sense understanding of political things is primary.
Our description of ‘the character of the Politics is manifestly
provisional. “Common sense” as used in this description is under-
stood in contradistinction to “science,” i.e. primarily modern natural
science, and therewith presupposes “science” whereas the Politics
itself does not presuppose “science.” We shall first attempt to reach
a more adequate understanding of the Politics by considering the
objections to which our contention is exposed.
12
ee.
Chapter I
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
According to the traditional view, it was not Aristotle but Socrates
who originated political philosophy or political science. More pre-
cisely, according to Cicero, Socrates was the first to cal] philosophy
down from heaven, to establish it in the cities, to introduce it also
into the households, and to compel it to inquire about men’s life
and manners as well as about the good and bad things. In other
words, Socrates was the first philosopher who concerned himself
chiefly or exclusively, not with the heavenly or divine things, but
with the human things. The heavenly or divine things are the things
to which man looks up or which are higher than the human things;
they are super-human. The human things are the things good or bad
for man as good or bad for man and particularly the just and noble
things and their opposites. Cicero does not say that Socrates called
philosophy down from heaven to earth, for the earth, the mother
surely of all earthly things and perhaps the oldest and therefore
the highest goddess, is itself super-human. The divine things are
higher in rank than the human things. Man manifestly needs the
divine things but the divine things do not manifestly need man. In
a parallel passage Cicero speaks not of “heaven” but of “nature”:
the higher than human things from whose study Socrates turned
to the study of the human things, is “the whole nature,” “the
Kosmos,” “the nature of all things.” This implies that “the human
things” are not “the nature of man”; the study of the nature of man
is part of the study of nature.* Cicero draws our attention to the
special effort which was required to turn philosophy toward the
*Cicero, Tusc. disput. V 10, and Brutus 31. Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia
I 1.41-12 and 1.15-16, Hiero 7.9, Oeconomicus 7.16 and 7.29-30, as well as
Aristotle, Metaphysics 987b]1-2 and Eth. Nic. 1094b7, 14-17; 114]a20-22,
b7-8; 1143b21-28; 1177b31-83.
13
THE CITY AND MAN
human things: philosophy turns primarily away from the human
things toward the divine or natural things; no compulsion is needed
or possible to establish philosophy in the cities or to introduce it
into the households; but philosophy must be compelled to turn back
toward the human things from which it originally departed.
The traditional view regarding the beginnings of political phi-
losophy or political science is no longer accepted. Prior to Socrates,
we are told, the Greek sophists turned to thé study of the human
things. As far as we know, Socrates himself did not speak about his
predecessors as such. Let us then see what the man who takes
Socrates’ place in Plato’s Laws, the Athenian stranger, says about
his predecessors, about all or almost all men who prior to him con-
cerned themselves with inquiries about nature. According to him,
these men assert that all things which are have come into being
ultimately out of and through certain “first things” which are not
strictly speaking “things” but which are responsible for the coming
into being and perishing of everything that comes into being and
perishes; it is the first things and the coming into being attending
on the first things which these men mean by “nature”; both the first
things and whatever arises through them, as distinguished from
human action, are “by nature.” The things which are by nature
stand at the opposite pole from the things which are by nomos
(ordinarily rendered as “law” or “convention”), i.e. things which
are not only not by themselves, nor by human making proper, but
only by men holding them to be or positing that they are or agree-
ing as to their being. The men whom the Athenian stranger opposes
assert above all that the gods are only by law or convention. For
our present purpose it is more immediately important to note that
according to these men the political art or science has little to do
with nature and is therefore not something serious. The reason
which they advance is that the just things are radically conventional
and the things which are by nature noble differ profoundly from
the things which are noble by convention: the way of life which
is straight or correct according to nature consists in being superior to
others or in lording it over the others whereas the way of life which
is straight or correct according to convention consists in serving
others. The Athenian stranger disagrees entirely with his prede-
cessors. We asserts that there are things which are just by nature.
He can also be said to show by deed—by the fact that he teaches
14
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
legislators—that he regards the political art or science as a most
serious pursuit.”
In order to be able to act and to speak as he does, the Athenian
stranger need not abandon the fundamental distinction from which
the men whom he opposes start. Despite the most important differ-
ence between him and them, the distinction between nature and
convention, between the natural and the positive, remains as funda-
mental for him, and for classical political philosophy in genera), as
it was for his predecessors.’ Our failure to recognize this is partly
due to modern philosophy. We cannot do more than to remind
readers of the most obvious points. The distinction mentioned be-
came questionable primarily through the reasoning which was
meant also to dispose of chance. The “explanation” of a chance
event is the realization that it is a chance event: the fortuitous meet-
ing of two men does not cease to be fortuitous when we know the
whole prehistory of the two men prior to their meeting. There are
then events which cannot meaningfully be traced to preceding
events. The tracing of something to convention is‘analogous to the
tracing of something to chance. However plausible a convention
may appear in the light of the conditions in which it arose, it never-
theless owes its being, its “validity,” to the fact that it became “held”
or “accepted.” Against this view the following reasoning was ad-
vanced: the conventions originate in human acts, and these acts are
as necessary, as fully determined by preceding causes, as natural as
any natural event in the narrow sense of the term; hence the dis-
tinction between nature and convention can only be provisional or
superficial.* Yet this “universal consideration regarding the concate-
nation of the causes” is not helpful as long as one does not show the
kind of preceding causes which are relevant for the explanation of
conventions, Natural conditions like climate, character of a territory,
race, fauna, flora appear to be especially relevant. This means, how-
ever, that in each case the “legislator” has prescribed what was best
for his people or that all customs are sensible or that all legislators
* Laws 631d1-2; 690b7~c3; 870e1-2; 888e4-6; 889b1-2, 4, c4, d-890a;
891c2-3, 7-9, e5-6; 892a2-8, c2-3; 967a7-d2.
* Consider especially Laws 757c—e.
“Eth, Nic. 1134b19-21,
* Spinoza, Tr. theol.-pol. IV (sect. 1-4 Bruder).
15
THE CITY AND MAN
are wise. Since this sanguine assumption cannot be maintained, one
is compelled to have recourse aiso to the errors, superstitions, or
follies of the legislators. But one can do this only as long as one
possesses a natural theology of one kind or another as well as knowl-
edge of what constitutes the well-being, the common good, of any
people. The difficulties which were encountered along this way of
explaining conventions led people to question the very notion of
convention as some sort of making; customs and languages, it was
asserted, cannot be traced to any positing or other conscious acts
but only to growth, to a kind of growth essentially different from
the growth of plants and animals but analogous to it; that growth
is more important and of higher rank than any making, even the
rational making according to nature. We shall not insist on the kin-
ship between the classical notion of “nature” and this modern no-
tion of “growth.” It is more urgent to point out that partly as a con-
sequence of the modern notion of “growth,” the classical distinction
between nature and convention, according to which nature is of
higher dignity than convention, has been overlaid by the modern
distinction between nature and history according to which history
(the realm of freedom and of values) is of higher dignity than
nature (which lacks purposes or values), not to say, as has been
said, that history comprehends nature which is essentially relative
to the essentially historical mind.
The Athenian stranger, to return, unlike his predecessors, takes
the political art or science seriously because he acknowledges that
there are things which are by nature just. He traces his divergence
from his predecessors to the fact that the latter admitted as first
things only bodies whereas, according to him, the soul is not deriva-
tive from the body or inferior in rank to it but by nature the ruler
over the body. In other words, his predecessors did not recognize
sufficiently the fundamental difference between body and soul.* The
status of the just things depends on the status of the soul. Justice
is the common good par excellence; if there are to be things which
are by nature just there must be things which are by nature com-
mon; but the body appears to be by nature each one’s own or
private.’ Aristotle goes to the end of this road by asserting that the
political association is by nature and that man is by nature political
* Laws 891cl—4, e5-892b1; 896b10-c3.
"Laws 739c6-d1 (cf. Republic 464d8-9 and 416d5-6).
16
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
because he is the being characterized by speech or reason and thus
capable of the most perfect, the most inti:nate union with his fellows
which is possible: the union in pure thoupist.®
The assertion of the Athenian strange: is coufirsed by wow
Aristotle says about the sophists’ manner of dealing with the y olitivsi
things. He says that the sophists either identify political science with
rhetoric or subordinate it to rhetoric. If there are uo things which
are by nature just or if there is not by nature a common good, if
therefore the only natural good is each man’s own good, it follows
that the wise man will not dedicate himself to the community but
only use it for his own ends or prevent his being used by the com-
munity for its end; but the most important instrument for this pur-
pose is the art of persuasion and in the first place forensic rhetoric.
Someone might say that the most complete form in which one could
use or exploit the political community would be the exercise of po-
litical power and especially of tyrannical power and that such exer-
cise requires, as Machiavelli showed later on, deep knowledge of
political things. According to Aristotle, the sophists denied this
conclusion; they believed that it is “easy” to discharge well the non-
rhetorical functions of govemment and to acquire the knowledge
needed for this purpose: the only political art to be taken seriously
is rhetoric.®
Aristotle does not deny however that there was a kind of political
philosophy prior to Socrates. For Aristotle, political philosophy is
primarily and ultimately the quest for that political order which is
best according to nature everywhere and, we may add, always.’
This quest will not come into its own as long as men are entirely
immersed in political life, be it even in the founding of a political
community, for even the founder is necessarily limited in his vision
by what can or must be done “here and now.” The first political
philosopher will then be the first man not engaged in political life
who attempted to speak about the best political order. That man,
Aristotle tells us, was a certain Hippodamus. Before presenting the
political order proposed by Hippodamus, Aristotle speaks at some
length of Hippodamus’ way of life. Apart from being the first polit-
* Politics 1253a1-18, 1281a2-4.
"Eth, Nic. 1181a12-17. Cf. Isocrates, Antidosis 80-83; Plato, Gorgias
460a3-4 (and context), Protagoras 318e6-319a2 and Theaetetus 167c2-7.
“Cf. Eth. Nic. 1185a4-5.
17
THE CITY AND MAN
ical philosopher, Hippodamus was also a famous town planner, he
lived, from ambition, in a somewhat overdone manner in other re-
spects also (for instance he paid too much attention to his cloth-
ing), and he wished to be leamed also regarding the whole nature.
It is not Aristotle’s habit to engage in what could even appear to be
slightly malicious gossip. The summarized remark is the only one
of its kind in his entire work. Shortly before speaking of Hippo-
damus, when discussing Plato's political writings, Aristotle describes
“Socrates’ speeches” (i.e. particularly the speeches occurring in the
Republic and the Laws) by setting forth their high qualities; but
he does this in order to legitimate his disagreement with those
speeches: since the Socratic speeches, especially those about the
simply best political order, exert an unrivaled charm, one must face
that charm as such. When speaking of Eudoxus’ hedonistic teach-
ing, Aristotle remarks that Eudoxus was reputed to be unusually
temperate; he makes this remark in order to explain why Eudoxus’
speeches were regarded as more trustworthy than those of other
hedonists.1* We may therefore assume that Aristotle did not make
his remark about Hippodamus’ way of life without a good reason.
Whereas the first philosopher became ridiculous on a certain occa-
sion in the eyes of a barbarian slave woman,’ the first political
philosopher was rather ridiculous altogether in the eyes of sensible
freemen. This fact indicates that political philosophy is more ques-
tionable than philosophy as such. Aristotle thus expresses in a
manner somewhat mortifying to political scientists the same thought
which Cicero expresses by saying that philosophy had to be com-
pelled to become concerned with political things. Aristotle’s sugges-
tion was taken up in modern times by Pascal who said that Plato
and Aristotle, being not pedants but gentlemen, wrote their political
works playfully: “this was the least philosophic and the least serious
part of their life . . . they wrote of politics as if they had to bring
order into a madhouse.” Pascal goes much beyond Aristotle, for,
while admitting that there are things which are by nature just, he
denies that they can be known to unassisted man owing to original
sin.*s
” Politics 1267b22-30; cf.1265al0-13 and 1263b15-22 as well as Eth. Nic.
1172b15-18.
* Plato, Theaetetus 173e1-174b7; Aristotle, Politics 1259a6-18.
* Pensées (ed. Brunschvicg) frs. 331 and 294. Cf. Plato, Laws 804b3-cl.
18
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
The best political order proposed by Hippodamus is distin-
guished by unusual simplicity: the citizen body is to consist of
10,000 men and of 3 parts; the land is to be divided into 3 parts;
there are only 3 kinds of laws, for there are only 3 things about
which lawsuits take place; regarding verdicts in lawcourts provision
must be made for the 3 alternatives. After having considered this
scheme which seems to be so clear, Aristotle is forced to note that
it involves great confusion: the confusion is caused by the desire
for a kind of clarity and simplicity which is alien to the subject
matter.’* It looks as if some account of “the whole nature’—an
account which used the number 3 as the key to all things—enabled
or compelled Hippodamus to go on toward his plan of the best
political order as that political order which is entirely according to
nature. But he merely arrived at great confusion because he did
not pay attention to the peculiar character of political things: he
did not see that the political things are in a class by themselves. In
spite or because of his ambition, Hippodamus did not succeed in
founding political philosophy or political science because he did not
begin by raising the question “what is political?” or rather “what is
the polis?” This question, and all questions of this kind, were raised
by Socrates who for this reason became the founder of political
philosophy.
The “what is” questions point to “essences,” to “essential” differ-
ences—to the fact that the whole consists of parts which are hetero-
geneous, not merely sensibly (like fire, air, water, and earth) but
noetically: to understand the whole means to understand the “What”
of each of these parts, of these classes of beings, and how they are
linked with one another. Such understanding cannot be the reduc-
tion of one heterogeneous class to others or to any cause or causes
other than the class itself; the class, or the class character, is the
cause par excellence. Socrates conceived of his turn to the “what is”
questions as a turn, or a return, to sanity, to “common sense”: while
the roots of the whole are hidden, the whole manifestly consists of
heterogeneous parts. One may say that according to Socrates the
things which are “first in themselves” are somehow “first for us”;
the things which are “first in themselves” are in a manner, but nec-
essarily, revealed in men’s opinions. Those opinions have as opinions
a certain order. The highest opinions, the authoritative opinions, are
* Politics 1267b30-1268a6; 1268b8-4, 11; Eth. Nic. 1094b11-27.
19
THE CITY AND MAN
the pronouncements of the law. The law makes manifest the just
and noble things and it speaks authoritatively about the highest
beings, the gods who dwell in heaven. The law is the law of the
city; the city looks up to, holds in reverence, “holds” the gods of the
city. The gods do not approve of man’s trying to seek out what they
did not wish to reveal, the things in heaven and beneath the earth.
A pious man will therefore not investigate the divine things but only
the human things, the things left to man’s investigation. It is the
greatest proof of Socrates’ piety that he limited himself to the study
of the human things. His wisdom is knowledge of ignorance be-
cause it is pious and it is pious because it is knowledge of ignor-
ance.* Yet the opinions however authoritative contradict one an-
other. Even if it should happen that a given city orders a matter of
importance without contradicting itself, one can be certain that the
verdict of that city will be contradicted by the verdicts of other
cities.** It becomes then necessary to transcend the authoritative
opinions as such in the direction of what is no longer opinion but
knowledge. Even Socrates is compelled to go the way from law to
nature, to ascend from law to nature. But he must go that way with
a new awakeness, caution, and emphasis. He must show the neces-
sity of the ascent by a lucid, comprehensive, and sound argument
which starts from the “common sense” embodied in the accepted
opinions and transcends them; his “method” is “dialectics.” This
obviously implies that, however much the considerations referred to
may have modified Socrates’ position, he still remains chiefly, if not
exclusively, concerned with the human things: with what is by
nature right and noble or with the nature of justice and nobility.”
In its original form political philosophy broadly understood is the
core of philosophy or rather “the first philosophy.” It also remains
true that human wisdom is knowledge of ignorance: there is no
knowledge of the whole but only knowledge of parts, hence only
partial knowledge of parts, hence no unqualified transcending, even
by the wisest man as such, of the sphere of opinion. This Socratic
or Platonic conclusion differs radically from a typically modern con-
clusion according to which the unavailability of knowledge of the
“Xenophon, Mem, I 1.11-16; IV 3.16, 6.1-4 and 7.6. Plato, Apol. Soc.
19b4-c8, 20d7~e8, 23a5-b4; Phaedo 99d4f.; Phaedrus 249e4—5.
* Consider Plato, Laches 190e4-191c6.
* Republic 501b2; cf. ibid. 597b-e and Phaedrus 254b5-6.
20
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
whole demands that the question regarding the whole be abandoned
and replaced by questions of another kind, for instance by the
questions characteristic cf modern natural and social science. The
elusiveness of the whole necessarily affects the knowledge of every
part. Because of the elusiveness of the whole, the beginning or the
questions retain a greater evidence than the end or the answers;
return to the beginning remains a constant necessity. The fact that
each part of the whole, ard hence in particular the political sphere,
is in a sense open to the whole, obstructs the establishment of polit-
ical philosophy or political science as an independent discipline.
Not Socrates or Plato but Aristotle is truly the founder of political
science: as one discipline, and by no means the most fundamental
or the highest discipline, among a number of disciplines. This dif-
ference between Plato and Aristotle can be illustrated by the con-
trast between the relation of the Republic to the Timaeus on the one
hand, and of the Politics to the Physics or On the Heaven on the
other. Aristotle's cosmology, as distinguished from Plato's, is un-
qualifiedly separable from the quest for the best political order.
Aristotelian philosophizing has no longer to the same degree and in
the same way as Socratic philosophizing the character of ascent.
Whereas the Platonic teaching presents itself necessarily in dia-
logues, the Aristotelian teaching presents itself necessarily in treat-
ises. As regards the political things, Aristotle acts directly as the
teacher of indefinitely many legislators or statesmen whom he
addresses collectively and simultaneously, whereas Plato presents
his political philosopher as guiding, in a conversation, one or two
men who seek the best political order or are about to legislate for
a definite community. Nevertheless it is no accident that the most
fundamental discussion of the Politics includes what is almost a
dialogue between the oligarch and the democrat.* It is equally
characteristic however that that dialogue does not occur at the be-
ginning of the Politics.
Aristotle is especially concerned with the proposal of Hippo-
damus that those who invent something useful to the city should
receive honors; his examination of this proposal takes up about a
half of his examination of Hippodamus’ whole scheme. He is much
less sure than Hippodamus of the virtues of innovation. It seems
that Hippodamus had not given thought to the difference between
* See especially 1281a16 and b18.
21
THE CITY AND MAN
innovation in the arts and innovation in law, or to the possible
‘tension between the need for political stability and what one might
call technological change. On the basis of some observations made
_ nearer home, one might suspect a connection between Hippodamus’
unbridled concern with clarity and simplicity and his unbridled
concern with technological progress. His scheme as a whole seems
_ to lead, not only to confusion, but to permanent confusion or revo-
' Jution. At any rate Aristotle cannot elucidate innovation without
bringing out a most important difference between the arts and law.
The arts are susceptible of infinite refinement and hence progress
and they do not as such in any way suffer from progress. The case
of law is different, for law owes its strength, i.e. its power of being
obeyed, as Aristotle says here, entirely to custom and custom comes
into being only through a long time. Law, in contradistinction to the
arts, does not owe its efficacy to reason at all or only to a small
degree.’® However evidently reasonable a law may be, its reason-
ableness becomes obscured through the passions which it restrains.
Those passions support maxims or opinions incompatible with the
law. Those passion-bred opinions in their turn must be counteracted
by passion-bred and passion-breeding opposite opinions which are
not necessarily identical with the reasons of the law. The law, the
most important instrument for the moral education of “the many,”
must then be supported by ancestral opinions, by myths—for in-
stance, by myths which speak of the gods as if they were human
beings—or by a “civil theology.” The gods as meant in these myths
have no being in and by themselves but only “by law.” Yet given
the necessity of law one may say that the principle of the whole
both wishes and does not wish to be called Zeus.?° Because the city
as a whole is characterized by a specific recalcitrance to reason, it
requires for its well-being a rhetoric different from forensic and
deliberative rhetoric as a servant to the political art.
“The very nature of public affairs often defeats reason.” One
illustration taken from Aristotle’s Politics must suffice. In the first
book, Aristotle sets forth the dictate of reason regarding slavery: it
is just to enslave men who are by nature slaves; men who are slaves
* Politics 1268b22-1269a24, 1257b25-27. Cf. Isocrates, Antidosis 62 and
Thomas Aquinas, S. th. 1 2 q. 97. a. 2. ad 1.
‘** Aristotle, Metaphysics 1074b1-14 (cf. Thomas Aquinas ad loc.). Cf.
Heraclitus (Diels, Vorsokratiker, 7th ed.) fr. 32.
22
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
not by nature but only by law and compulsion are unjustly en-
slaved; a man is a slave by nature if he is too stupid to guide him-
self or can do only a kind of work little superior to the work done
by beasts of burden; such a man is better off as a slave than free.
But when discussing the best polity, Aristotle takes it for granted
that the slave population of that polity consists of men each of
whom can safely be rewarded with freedom for his service, i.e. is
not a natural slave. After all, a man may have by nature a slavish
character, a lack of pride or manliness which disposes him to obey
a stronger man, while being intelligent and thus much more useful
to his master than a fellow who is as strong and as stupid as an ox.”*
Plato who also allows, to Aristotle’s displeasure, that the defenders
of the city be savage toward strangers, expresses the same thought
‘more directly by admitting, with Pindar, that superiority in strength
is a natural title to rule. From this we understand why the nature
of political things defeats to some extent not only reason but per-
suasion in any form and one grasps another reason why the sophistic
reduction of the political art to rhetoric is absurd. Xenophon’s com-
panion Proxenus had been a pupil of Gorgias, the famous rhetori-
cian. Thanks to Gorgias’ instruction he was capable of ruling gentle-
men by means of praise or abstention from praise. Yet "he was
utterly incapable of instilling his soldiers with respect and fear of
himself: he was unable to discipline them. Xenophon on the other
hand, the pupil of Socrates, possessed the full political art. The very
same thought—the insufficiency of persuasion for the guidance of
“the many” and the necessity of laws with teeth in them—consti-
tutes the transition from Aristotle’s Ethics to his Politics. It is within
this context that he denounces the sophists’ reduction of politics to
thetoric.?? So far from being “Machiavellians,” the sophists—believ-
ing in the omnipotence of speech—were blind to the sternness of
politics.
Hitherto we have spoken of the apparent superiority of the arts
to laws. But precisely Aristotle’s critique of Hippodamus implies
that the arts must be regulated by law and hence are subordinate to
law. Law owes this dignity to the facts that it is meant to be a
* Aristotle, Politics 1254b22-1255a3, 1255b4-15, 1285a19-22, 1327b27-29,
1830a25-33. Cicero, Republic 1 57
* Eth. Nic. 1179b4#.; Plato, — 690b; Xenophon, Anabasis H 16-20;
Cicero, Republic 1 2-3.
23
THE CITY AND MAN
dictate of reason and that the reason effective in the arts is lower
than the reason effective in law as law should be.?* Laws are the
work of the legislative art, but the legislative art is the highest form
of practical wisdom or prudence, the prudence concemed with the
common good of a political society, as distinguished from prudence
in the primary sense which is concerned with a man’s own good.
The difference between arts and law is then founded on the differ-
ence between arts and prudence. Prudence is of higher dignity than
the arts because every art is concerned with a partial good whereas
prudence is concerned with the whole human good, the good life.
Prudence alone enables one to distinguish between genuine arts
(like medicine) and sham arts (like cosmetics) and to decide which
use of an art (for instance, of strategy) is good. The arts point to
Right or Law which makes them arts by being their limit and
norm.”* The artisan as artisan is concerned with producing the work
peculiar to his art (the cobbler with making shoes, the physician
with restoring health) but not with his own good; he is concerned
with his own good in so far as he is concerned with receiving pay
for his work or with practicing the art which accompanies al] arts,
the art of money-making; thus the art of money-making could ap-
pear to be the universal art, the art of arts; the art of money-making
knows no limits: it enables a man to make greater and ever greater
gains; yet the view that money-making is an art presupposes that
unlimited acquisitiveness is good for a man and this presupppsition
can well be questioned; it appears that acquisition is for the sake
of use, of the good use of wealth, i.e. of an activity regulated by.
prudence.”® The distinction between prudence and the arts implies
that there is no art that tells me which partial good supplied by an
art I ought to choose here and now in preference to other goods.
There is no expert who can decide the prudent man’s vital ques-
tions for him as well as he can. To be prudent means to lead a good
life, and to lead a good life means that one deserves to be one’s own
master or that one makes one’s own decisions well. Prudence is that
kind of knowledge which is inseparable from “moral virtue,” i.e.
goodness of character or of the habit of choosing, just as moral virtue
is inseparable from prudence. The arts as arts do not have this close
* Eth, Nic. 1094a27-b6, 1180a18-22; cf. 1184a34 with Politics 1287a28-30:
“Eth. Nic. 1094b7-10, 1140a26-30, 1141b23-29, 1181a23; cf. Sophocles,
Antigone 332-372.
* Politics 1257b4ff.; Plato, Republic 341c4-7 and 346.
eh
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
connection with moral virtue. Aristotle goes so far as to suggest that
the virtue required of artisans as artisans is less than that required
of slaves.** Prudence and moral virtue unsted and as it were fused
enable a man to lead a good life or the zoble life which seems to
be the natural end of man. The best life is the life devoted to under-
standing or contemplation as distinguished from the practical or
political life. Therefore practical wisdom is lower in rank than theo-
retical. wisdom which is concerned with the divine things or the
kosmos, and subservient to it—but in such a way that within its
sphere, the sphere of all human things as such, prudence is su-
preme.”’ The sphere ruled by prudence is closed since the principles
of prudence—the ends in the light of which prudence guides man
—are known independently of theoretical science. Because Aristotle
held that art is inferior to law or to prudence, that prudence is
inferior to theoretical wisdom, and that theoretical wisdom (know!]-
edge of the whole, i.e. of that by virtue of which “all things” are
a whole) is available, he could found political science as an inde-
pendent discipline among a number of disciplines in such a way that
political science preserves the perspective of the citizen or states-
man or that it is the fully conscious form of the “common sense”
understanding of political things.
The Athenian stranger may be said to assert that the men who
preceded him conceived of nature as superior to art and of art as
superior to law. Aristotle conceives of nature as superior to law—
for the good law is the law which is according to nature—and of
law as superior to the arts. Aristotle’s view must also be distin-
guished from another extreme view by virtue of which nature and
law become fused and oppose themselves to the arts which thus
appear to defile a sacred order.
According to Aristotle it is moral virtue that supplies the sound
principles of action, the just and noble ends, as actually desired;
these ends come to sight only to the morally good man; prudence
seeks the means to these ends. The morally good man is the prop-
erly bred man, the well-bred man. Aristotle’s political science is
addressed only to such men.”8 The sphere of prudence is then closed
by principles which are fully evident only to gentlemen. In seeking
* Politics 1260a33-41.
7 Eth, Nic. 1141a28-b9, 1145a6-11.
* Eth. Nic. 1095a80-b8, 1103a24-26, 1144a7-9, 1144a20-1145a6, 1178a-
16-19.
26
THE CITY AND MAN
for higher principles, one would raise the question “why should
one be decent?” but in doing so one would already have ceased to
be a gentleman, for decency is meant to be choiceworthy for its own
sake. The gentleman is recognized as gentleman not only by other
gentlemen but also by people of deficient breeding. Yet among the
latter there may be men of great power of persuasion who question
the goodness of moral virtue. It is therefore not sufficient to know
what justice, magnanimity and the other virtues are and to be moved
by their beauty; one must show that they are good.”° One must then
transcend the sphere of prudence or of what one may call the moral
consciousness. One must show that the practice of the moral virtues
is the end of man by nature, i.e. that man is inclined toward such
practice by nature. This does not require that man by nature know
his natural end without any effort on his part. The natural end of
man as well as of any other natural being becomes genuinely known
through theoretical science, through the science of the natures.*°
More precisely, knowledge of the virtues derives from knowledge
of the human soul: each part of the soul has its specific perfection.
Plato sketches such a purely theoretical account of the virtues in
the Republic. But it is characteristic of Aristotle that he does not
even attempt to give such an account. He describes all the moral
virtues as they are known to morally virtuous man without trying
to deduce them from a higher principle; generally speaking, he
leaves it at the fact that a given habit is regarded as praiseworthy
without investigating why this is so. One may say that he remains
within the limits of an unwritten nomos which is recognized by
well-bred people everywhere. This nomos may be in agreement with
reason but is not as such dictated by reason. It constitutes the
sphere of human or political things by being its limit or its ceiling.
By proceeding differently, Aristotle would make political or prac-
tical science dependent on theoretical science.
In order to grasp the ground of Aristotle’s procedure, one must
start from the facts that according to him the highest end of man
by nature is theoretical understanding or philosophy and this per-
_™ Cf. Plato, Republic I end and Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1101b25-27 (cf.
11382b31-1193a2).
* Aristotle, On the Soul 434a16~21 (cf. 432b27~30). Cf. Averroés, Com-
mentary on Plato’s Republic (ed. E.1.J. Rosenthal) I 23.5 and II 8.1; Thomas
Aquinas, Commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics VI lectio 2. (nr. 1131),
S. th. 2 2 q. 47. a. 6, ad 8.
26
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
fection does not require moral virtue as moral virtue, i.e. just and
noble deeds as choiceworthy for their own sake." It goes without
saying that man’s highest end cannot be achieved without actions
resembling moral actions proper, but the actions in question are
intended by the philosopher as mere means toward his end. That
end also calls for prudence, for the philosopher must deliberate
about how he can secure the conditions for his philosophizing here
and now. The moral virtues are more directly related to man’s sec-
ond natural end, his social life; one could therefore think that the
moral virtues are intelligible as being essentially in the service of
the city. For instance, magnanimity is praiseworthy because the city
needs men who are born to command and who know that they are
born to command. But it suffices to read Aristotle’s description of
magnanimity in order to see that the full phenomenon of magnanim-
ity cannot be understood in that way. The moral virtues cannot be
understood as being for the sake of the city since the city must be
understood as being for the sake of the practice of moral virtue."
Moral virtue is then not intelligible as a means for the only two
natural ends which could be thought to be its end. Therefore, it
seems, it must be regarded as an “absolute.” Yet one cannot dis-
regard its relations to those two natural ends. Moral virtue shows
that the city points beyond itself but it does not reveal clearly that
toward which it points, namely, the life devoted to philosophy. The
man of moral virtue, the gentleman, may very well know that his
political activity is in the service of noble leisure but his leisurable
activity hardly goes beyond the enjoyment of poetry and the other
imitative arts.’? Aristotle is the founder of political science because
he is the discoverer of moral virtue. For Plato, what Aristotle calls
moral virtue is a kind of halfway house between political or vulgar
virtue which is in the service of bodily well-being (of self-preserva-
tion or peace) and genuine virtue which, to say the least, animates
only the philosophers as philosophers. As for the Stoics, who went
so far as to assert that only the noble is good, they identified the
man of nobility with the wise man who as such possesses the
™ Eth. Nic. 1177b1-8, 1178a28ff.; cf. E.E. 1248b9fF. Cf. Averroés, loc. cit.
MI 12 and 16.10; Thomas, S. th. 1 2 q. 58. a. 4-5. and 2 2 q. 45. a. 4.
“Eth. Nic. 1695b30-31, 1099b29-32, 1178b5; Politics 1278b21-24. Cf.
Avertots, loc. cit. I 4.7.
* Politics 1337b33--1338b4,
“ Phaedo 68b2-69c3, 82allff., Republic 518d9-e8.
27
THE CITY AND MAN
“virtues” called logic and physics.** We must beware of mistaking
Aristotle's man of moral virtue or “good man” who is the perfect
gentleman for the “good man” who is just and temperate but lacks
all other virtues, like the members of the lowest class in Plato's
Republic.* The latter notion of “goodness” prepared Machiavelli's
and Rousseau’s distinction, or opposition, between “goodness” and
“virtue.”
When the philosopher Aristotle addresses his political science to
more or less perfect’ gentlemen, he shows them as far as possible
that the way of life of the perfect gentleman points toward the
philosophic way of life; he removes a screen. He articulates for his
addressees the unwritten nomos which was the limit of their vision
while he himself stands above that limit. He is thus compelled or
enabled to correct their opinions about things which fall within
their purview. He must speak of virtues and vices which were
“nameless” and hence hitherto unknown. He must deny explicitly
or tacitly that habits as highly praised as sense of shame and piety
are virtues. The gentleman is by nature able to be affected by phi-
losophy; Aristotle’s political science is an attempt to actualize this
potentiality. The gentleman affected by philosophy is in the highest
case the enlightened statesman, like Pericles who was affected by
Anaxagoras.*? The moral-political sphere is then not unqualifiedly
closed to theoretical science. One reason why it seemed necessary
to make a radical distinction between practical wisdom on the one
hand and the sciences and the arts on the other was the fact that
every art is concerned with a partial good, whereas prudence is con-
cerned with the whole human good. Yet the highest form of pru-
dence is the legislative art which is the architectonic art, the art of
arts, because it deals with the whole human good in the most com-
prehensive manner. It is concerned with the whole human good by
being concerned with the highest human good with reference to
which all partial human goods are good. It deals with its subject in
the most comprehensive manner because it establishes the frame-
work within which political prudence proper, the right handling of
situations, can take place. Moreover, “legislative art” is an ambig-
uous term; it may mean the art practiced “here and now” by a legis-
“ Cicero, De finibus III 11, 17-18, 72-73. Consider, however, ibid. V 36.
“Cf. Phaedo 82al1~b2 with Cicero, Offices II 35.
" Phaedrus 269d-270a.
28
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
lator acting on behalf of this or that political community; but it may
also mean the “practical science” of legislation taught by the teacher
of legislators which is superior in dignity to the former since it sup-
plies guidance for it. As a practical science it differs from prudence
in all its forms because it is free from that involvement the dangers
of which cannot be averted except by moral virtue.** Hence pru-
dence appears to be ultimately subject to a science. Considerations
like these induced Socrates and Plato to assert that virtue is knowl-
edge and that quest for prudence is philosophy. Just as the partial
human goods cannot be known to be goods except with reference
to the highest or the whole human good, the whole human good
cannot be known to be good except with reference to the good
simply, the idea of the good, which comes to sight only beyond and
above all other ideas: the idea of the good, and not the human
good or in particular gentlemanship, is the principle of prudence.
But since love of wisdom is not wisdom and philosophy as prudence
is the never-to-be-completed concern with one’s own good, it seems
impossible to know that the philosophic life is the best life. Socrates
could not know this if he did not know that the only serious alterna-
tive to the philosophic life is the political life and that the political
life is subordinate to the philosophic life: political life is life in the
cave which is partly closed off by a wall from life in the light of the
sun; the city is the only whole within the whole or the only part of
the whole whose essence can be wholly known. In spite of their
disagreement Plato and Aristotle agree as to this, that the city is
both closed to the whole and open to the whole, and they are agreed
as to the character of the wall separating the city from the rest of
the whole. Given the fact that the only political work proper of
Plato is the Laws in which Socrates does not occur, one is tempted
to draw this conclusion: the only reason why not Socrates but Aris-
totle became the founder of political science is that Socrates who
spent his life in the unending ascent to the idea of the good and in
awakening others to that ascent, lacked for this reason the leisure
not only for political activity but even for founding political sci-
ence.—
o
“Eth. Nic. 1094a15-b10, 1099b31, 1104a3-10, 1141b24-27, 1152b1-3,
1181223; Politics 1287a82-b8, 1288b10f., 1325b40f. Cf. Thomas Aquinas,
S. th. 1 q. 1. a. 6. ad 3. and q. 14. a. 16. c. as well as Commentary on Ethics
VI lectio 7. (nr. 1200-1201).
29
THE CITY AND MAN
Our provisional contention according to which Aristotle's polit-
ical science is the fully conscious form of the common sense under-
standing of political things is open to the objection that the matrix
of that science is not common sense simply but the common sense
of the Greeks, not to say the common sense of the Greek upper class.
This is said to show itself immediately in the theme of Aristotle's
Politics, the Greek city-state. It is true that city-states were much
more common among the Greeks than among the non-Greeks,** but
the fact that Aristotle respects the Carthaginian city-state hardly
less than the Spartan and-much more than the Athenian suffices to
dispose of the assertion that the city-state is essentially Greek. A
more serious difficulty appears when we turn our attention to the
expression “city-state.” The city-state is meant to be a particular
form of the state, and this thought cannot even be stated in Aris-
totle’s language. Furthermore, when we speak today of “state,” we
understand “state” in contradistinction to “society,” yet “city” com-
prises “state” and “society.” More precisely, “city” antedates the
distinction between state and society and cannot therefore be put
together out of “state” and “society.” The nearest English equivalent
to “the city” is “the country”: one can say “my country right or
wrong,” but one cannot say “my society right or wrong” or “my
state right or wrong.” “City” can be used synonymously with “father-
land.”*° Yet the difference between “city” and “country” must not
be neglected. “City” is not the same as “town,” for “city” comprises
both “town” and “country,” yet the city as Aristotie understands it
is essentially an urban society*’: the core of the city is not the tillers
of the soil. The alternative to “city” is not another form of “state”
but the “tribe” or “nation” as a lower, not to say barbarian, kind of
society which in contradistinction to the city is unable to combine
civilization with freedom.
While for the citizen the modern equivalent of the city is the
country, for the theoretical man that equivalent is the unity of state
and society which transforms itself into “society” simply as well as
into “civilization” or “culture.” Through our understanding of “the
* Cf. Aristophanes, Peace 59 and 63.
“Cf. Xenophon, Hiero 4.3-5; Plato, Crito 51cl, Laws 856d5. Consider,
above all, Aristotle’s treatment of “the fatherland.”
“ Politics 1276a26-30; 1319a9-10, 29-38; 1321b19, 28. Cf. Plato, Laws
758d-e. :
“ Politics 1284a38~b3, b388-39; 1326b3-5.
30
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
country” we would have a direct access to “the city,” but that access
is blocked by the modern equivalents of the “city” which originate
in theory. It is therefore necessary to understand the ground of the
difference between “city” on the one hand and these modern equiva-
lents on the other.
The city is a society which embraces various kinds of smaller and
subordinate societies; among these the family or the household is the
most important. The city is the most comprehensive and the highest
society since it aims at the highest and most comprehensive good at
which any society can aim. This highest good is happiness. The
highest good of the city is the same as the highest good of the indi-
vidual. The core of happiness is the practice of virtue and primarily
of moral virtue. Since the theoretical life proves to be the most
choiceworthy for the individual, it follows that at least some ana-
logue of it is the aim also of the city. However this may be, the
chief purpose of the city is the noble life and therefore the chief
concern of the city must be the virtue of its members and hence
liberal education.** There is a great variety of opinions as to what
constitutes happiness but Aristotle is satisfied that there is no serious
disagreement on this subject among sufficiently thoughtful people.
In modem times it came to be believed that it is wiser to assume
that happiness does not have a definite meaning since different men,
and even the same man at different times, have entirely different
views as to what constitutes happiness. Hence happiness or the
highest good could no longer be the common good at which political
society aims. Yet however different the notions of happiness may be,
the fundamental conditions of happiness, it was believed, are in all
cases the same: one cannot be happy without being alive, without
being a free man, and without being able to pursue happiness how-
ever one understands happiness. Thus it became the purpose of po-
litical society to guarantee those conditions of happiness which
came to be understood as the natural rights of each, and to refrain
from imposing on its members happiness of any sort, for no notion
of happiness can be intrinsically superior to any other notion. One
may indeed call the security of all members of society in life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, public or political happiness, but one
thus merely confirms the fact that true happiness is private. Some
“Eth. Nic. 1094a18-28, 1095a14-20, 1098a15-17; Politics 1252al-7,
1278b21~24, 1324a5-8, 1825b14-32.
31
kind of virtue is indispensable even for political society thus under-
stood__as a means for peaceably living together and ultimately for
each man’s happiness whatever that happiness may be. Hence the
purpose of the individual and the purpose of political society are
essentially different. Each individual strives for happiness as he
understands happiness. This striving, which is partly competitive
with and partly cooperative with the strivings of everyone else, pro-
duces or constitutes a kind of web; that web is “society” as distin-
guished from the “state” which merely secures the conditions for the
striving of the individuals. It follows that in one respect the state is
superior to society, for the state is based on what all must equally
desire because they all equally need it, on the conditions of happi-
ness, and that in another respect society is superior to the state, for
society is the outcome of each individual’s concern with his end,
whereas the state is concerned only with certain means. In other
words, the public and the common is in the service of the merely
private whatever that private may be, or the highest or ultimate
purpose of the individual is merely private. This difficulty cannot be
overcome except by transcending the plane on which both society
and the state exist.
Aristotle knew and rejected a view of the city which seems to
foreshadow the modern view of political society and hence the
distinction between state and society. According to that view, the
purpose of the city is to enable its members to exchange goods and
services by protecting them against violence among themselves
and from foreigners, without its being concerned at all with the
moral character of its members.** Aristotle does not state the reasons
which were adduced for justifying this limitation of the purpose of
the city unless his reference in this context to a sophist is taken to
be a sufficient indication. The view reported by Aristotle reminds
us of the description given in Plato’s Republic of the “city of pigs”*
—of a society which is sufficient for satisfying the natural wants of
the body, i.e. of the naturally private. We shall say that society
as distinguished from the state first comes to sight as the market in
which competitors buy and sell and which requires the state as its
protector or rather servant. On this basis the “political” comes to be
“ Politics 1280a25-b35. Cf. the kindred criticism of this kind of society
by Augustine in De Civitate Dei I 20. -
“ Republic 372d4 and e6-7.
32
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
understood eventually as derivative from the “economic.” The ac-
tions of the market are as such voluntary whereas the state coerces.
Yet voluntariness is not a preserve of the market; it is above all cf
the essence of genuine, as distinguished ixon\ merely utilitarin,,
virtue. From this it was inferred in modera times that since virtue
cannot be brought about by coercion, the promotion of virtue can-
not be the purpose of the state; not because virtue is unimportant
but because it is lofty and sublime, the state must be indifferent to
virtue and vice as such, as distinguished from transgressions of the
state’s laws which have no other function than the protection of the
life, liberty, and property of each citizen. We note in passing that
this reasoning does not pay sufficient attention to the importance
of habituation or education for the acquisition of virtue. This rea-
soning leads to the consequence that virtue, and religion, must
become private, or else that society, as distinguished from the state,
is the sphere less of the private than of the voluntary. Society em-
braces then not only the sub-political but the supra-political
(morality, art, science) as well. Society thus understood is no longer
properly called society, nor even civilization, but culture. On this
basis the political must be understood as derivative from the cul-
tural: culture is the matrix of the state. “Culture” as susceptible of
being used in the plural is the highest modern equivalent of “city.”
In its original form “culture” in the sense indicated was thought to
have its originating core in religion: “it is in religion that a nation
[Volk] gives itself the definition of what it regards as the truth.”
According to Aristotle too, the concern with the divine occupies
somehow the first place among the concems of the city but this is
not true according to him in the last analysis. His reason is that
that concern with the divine which occupies the place of honor
among the concerns of the city is the activity of the priesthood,
“Hegel, Die Vernunft in der Geschichte (ed. Hoffmeister) 125. In his
“Wissenschaftliche Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts” (Schriften zur Politik und
Rechtsphilosophie [ed. Lasson}] 383 and 393) Hegel renders Plato’s and Aris-
totle’s polis by “Volk.” Hegel does not speak of cultures but of Volksgeister
and Weltanschauungen. Cf. Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
(Works [Behn Standard Library} II 851 and 362) and Letters on a Regicide
Peace I (ed. cit, V 214-215). The kinship between trade, “society,” and “cul-
ture” as the spontaneous or non-coercive (in contradistinction to the state as
well as to religion) appears in Jakob Burckhardt’s Weltgeschichtliche Betracht-
ungen (Gesamtausgabe, VII [Basel, 1929] 20, 42-43 and 47-48).
33
THE CITY AND MAN
whereas the true concern with the divine is the knowledge of the
divine, i.e. transpolitical wisdom which is devoted to the cosmic
gods as distinguished from the Olympian gods. In the words of
Thomas Aquinas, reason informed by faith, not natural reason
simply, to say nothing of corrupted reason, teaches that God is to
be loved and worshipped.’ Natural reason cannot decide which of
the various forms of divine worship is the true one, although it is
able to show the falsity of those which are plainly immoral; each
of the various forms of divine worship appears to natural reason to
owe its validity to political establishment and therefore to be subject
to the city. Aristotle’s view is less opposed to the Biblical view than
it might seem: he too is concerned above all with the truth of reli-
gion. But to return to the relation between “city” and “culture,”
“culture” as commonly used now differs from the original notion
decisively because it no longer implies the recognition of an order of
rank among the various elements of culture. From this point of view
Aristotle’s assertion that the political element is the highest or most
authoritative element in human society must appear to be arbitrary
or at best the expression of one culture among many.
The view according to which all elements of culture are of equal
rank, is meant to be adequate for the description or analysis of all
human societies present or past. Yet it appears to be the product
of one particular culture, modern Western culture, and it is not
certain that its use for the understanding of other cultures does not
do violence to them: these cultures must be understood as they are
in themselves. It. would seem that each culture must be understood
in the light of what it looks up to; that to which it looks up may
appear to it to become reflected in a particular kind of human
being, and that kind of human being may rule the society in ques-
tion in broad daylight; it is this special case of rule which Aristotle
regarded as the normal case. But is it merely a special case? The
view according to which all elements of a culture are of equal rank,
which we may call the egalitarian view of culture, reflects an egali-
tarian society—a society which derives its character from its looking
up to equality (and ultimately to a universe not consisting of essen-
tially different parts) and which therefore looks up to such uncom-
“ Politics 1828b11-13 and 1322b12-87. Thomas, S. th. 1 2 q. 104. a. 1.
ad 3.; cf. 22q. 85. a. 1. ad 1.
34
ON ABRISTOTLE’S POLITICS
mon men as devote themselves to the service of the common man.
The present interest in the variety of cultures was foreshadowed by
the interest of certain Greek travellers in the variety of nations.
Herodotus may be said to have studied the various nations with a
view to the nature of the land and of its inhabitants, their arts or
crafts, their laws written or unwritten, and their stories or accounts;
in this scheme the political element was not manifestly the highest
or the most authoritative. In contradistinction to this descriptive
approach, Aristotle's approach is practical; he sees the various so-
cieties as they appear when one is guided by the question of the
good society or of the good life; those societies themselves come to
sight then as attempting to answer that question, given the condi-
tions imposed on them; in this perspective the nature of the land and
of its inhabitants, to some extent even the arts and the accounts, ap-
pear as conditions and the political order alone as the intended.—
We must now say a few words about Aristotle’s alleged anti-
democratic prejudice. The democracy with which he takes issue is
the democracy of the city, not modern democracy or the kind of
democracy which presupposes the distinction between state and
society. The democracy of the city is characterized by the presence
of slavery: citizenship was a privilege not a right. That democracy
did not allow the claim to freedom of man as man but of freeman
as freeman and in the last analysis of men who are by nature free-
men, not to say of people descended on both sides from citizens.
The freeman is distinguished from the slave by the fact that he
lives as he likes; the claim to live as he likes is raised for every
freeman equally. He refuses to take orders from anyone or to be
subject to anyone. But since government is necessary, the freeman
demands that he not be subject to anyone who is not in turn subject
to him: everyone must have as much access to magistracies as
everyone else, merely because he is a freeman. The only way in
which this can be guaranteed is election by lot, as distinguished
from voting for candidates where considerations other than whether
the candidate is a free man—especially merit—inevitably enter;
voting for candidates is aristocratic rather than democratic. Hence
modern democracy would have to be described with a view to its
intention from. Aristotle’s point of view as a mixture of democracy
and aristocracy. Since freedom as claimed by the democracy of the
city means to live as one likes, that democracy permits only the
35
THE CITY AND MAN
minimum of restraint on its members; it is “permissive” to the ex-
treme.‘* One may find it strange that Aristotle does not allow for the
possibility ot an austere, stern, “Puritan” democracy; but this kind of
regime would be theocratic rather than democratic. We must note,
however, that Aristotle does not suggest a connection between the
democracy of the city and the city which limits itself to enabling
its members to exchange goods and services by protecting them
against violence without its being concerned with the moral char-
acter of its members. Democracy as he understands it is no less
passionately and comprehensively political than any other regime.
It could seem that democracy is not merely one form of the city
among many but its normal form, or that the city tends to be demo-
cratic. The city is, or tends to be, a society of free and equal men.
As city it is the people or belongs to the people and this would
seem to require that it be ruled by the people. It is no accident that
Aristotle introduces the fundamental reflections of the third book
of the Politics by an argument of democratic origin and that the
first definition of the citizen which suggests itself to him is that of
the citizen in a democracy. In contradistinction to oligarchy and
aristocracy, democracy is the rule of all and not the rule of a part;
oligarchy and aristocracy exclude the common people from partici-
nation in government whereas democracy does not exclude the
wealtby and the gentlemen.‘* Nevertheless, according to Aristotle,
the apparent rule of all in democracy is in fact the rule of a part.
Among equals, the fair, nay, the only possible way compatible with
deliberation, of deciding issues where unanimity is lacking is to
abide by the will of the majority, but it so happens that the majority
of freemen in practically every city is the poor; hence democracy
is the rule of the poor.*° Democracy presents itself as the rule of
all or it bases its claim on freedom and not on poverty, because
titles to rule are more credible if based on an excellence rather
than on a defect or a need. But if democracy is rule of the poor,
of those who lack leisure, it is the rule of the uneducated and there-
fore undesirable. Since it is not safe to exclude the demos where it
* Politics 1273b40-41, 1275b22-25, 1317a40-b21, 1323a3~6. Cf. Plato,
Republic 557a9f. and 562b9-c2, Statesman 303a4-7.
® Politics 1255b20, 1259b4-6, 1274b32-36, 1275b5-7, 1280a5, 1281b34~
38, 1282a16-17, 1295b25-26. Cf. Cicero, Republic I 39-43. Consider Plato,
Republic 557d4-9.
” Politics 1294a9-14, 1817b5-10.
36
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
exists from participation in rule, Aristotle devised as his best polity
a city without a demos, a city consisting only of gentlemen on the
one hand and metics and slaves on the other.*! This perfect solution
is however possible only under the most favorable conditions. Aris-
totle considered therefore a variety of less extreme solutions—of
regimes in which the common people participate without being pre-
dominant. He comes closest to accepting democracy—at least in the
case when the common people is not too depraved—in the funda-
mental reflections of the third book. After having laid the broadest
possible foundations, he states first the case for democracy and then
for the absolute rule of one outstanding man.°? He acts as if he
agreed with the suggestion made in Plato’s Laws according to which
there are two “mothers” of all other regimes, namely, democracy
and monarchy.** The argument in favor of a certain kind of democ-
racy appears to be conclusive on the political level. Why then is
Aristotle not wholly satisfied with it? What induces him to tum
from democracy to a certain kind of absolute monarchy? Who is
that Zeus-like man who has the highest natural title to rule, a much
higher title than any multitude? He is the man of the highest self-
sufficiency who therefore cannot be a part of the city: is he not, if
not the philosopher, at least the highest political reflection of the
philosopher? He is not likely to be the philosopher himself, for
kingship in the highest sense belongs to the dawn of the city,
whereas philosophy belongs to a later stage and the completion of
philosophy—Aristotle’s own philosophy—belongs rather to its dusk:
the peak of the city and the peak of philosophy belong to entirely
different times.** However this may be, we suggest that the ultimate
reason why Aristotle has reservations against even the best kind of
democracy is his certainty that the demos is by nature opposed to
philosophy.*> Only the gentlemen can be open to philosophy, i.e.
listen to the philosopher. Modern democracy on the other hand
presupposes a fundamental harmony between philosophy and the
people, a harmony brought about by universal enlightenment, or by
" Politics 1274a17-18, 1281b28-30, 1328b24~1929a2, 1329a19-26.
“ Compare the argument in favor of democracy from 1281a39 to 1283b35
with 1282b36; 1283b16-23; 1284a3-8, b18, 28-33. Cf. 1282a15-16.
* Laws 693d2—e8.
*“ Politics 1253a27~29, 1267a10-12, 1284b25-34, 1286b20-22, 1288a26-
28, 1313a4-5; Eth Nic. 1160b8-6, 1177a27~bl.
“ Cf. Gorgias 481d3-5 and Republic 4944-7.
37
THE CITY AND MAN
philosophy (science) relieving man’s estate through inventions and
discoveries recognizable as salutary by all, or by both means. On the
basis of the break with Aristotle, one could come to believe in the
possibility of the simply rational society, i.e. of a society each mem-
ber of which would be of necessity perfectly rational so that all
would be united by fraternal friendship, and government of men,
as distinguished from administration of things, would wither away.
It also became possible to integrate philosophy into the city or
rather into its modern equivalent, “culture,” and thus to achieve
the replacement of the distinction between nature and convention
by the distinction between nature and history.
For Aristotle political inequality is ultimately justified by the
natural inequality among men. The fact that some men are by
nature rulers and others by nature ruled points in its turn to the
inequality which pervades nature as a whole: the whole as an or-
dered whole consists of beings of different rank. In man the soul
is by nature the ruler of the body and the mind is the ruling part
of the soul. It is on the basis of this that thoughtful men are said
to be the natural rulers of the thoughtless ones.** It is obvious
that an egalitarianism which appeals from the inequality regarding
the mind to the equality regarding breathing and digestion does not
meet the issue. Entirely different is the case of an egalitarianism
which starts from morality and its implications. In passing moral
judgments—in praising good men or good actions and in blaming
bad men or bad actions—we presuppose that a man’s actions, and
hence also his being a good or a bad man, are in his power.*7 We
presuppose therefore that prior to the exercise of their wills, or by
nature, all men are equal with respect to the possibility of becoming
good or bad men, i.e. in what seems to be the highest respect. Yet
a man’s upbringing or the conditions in which he lives would seem
to affect greatly, if not decisively, his potentiality of becoming or
being good or bad. To maintain a man’s moral responsibility in the
face of the unfavorable conditions which moulded him, one seems
to be compelled to make him responsible for those conditions: he
himself must have willed the conditions which as it were compel
him to act badly. More generally, the apparent inequality among
men in respect of the possibility of being good must be due to
* Politics 1254a28-b16.
Eth. Nic. 1113b6f.
38
cary
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
human fault.** Moral judgment seems then to lead up to the postu-
late that a God concerned with justice has created all men equal as -
regards their possibility of becoming good or bad. Yet “matter”
might counteract this intention of the just God. One must therefore
postulate creation ex nihilo by an omnipotent God who as such must’
be omniscient, by the absolutely sovereign God of the Bible who
will be what He will be, i.e. who will be gracious to whom He wil
be gracious; for, to say nothing of other considerations, the assump-.
tion that His grace is a function of human merit necessarily leads
men into pride. In agreement with this, Thomas Aquinas teaches
that even in the state of innocence, if it had lasted, men would
have been unequal regarding justice and there would have been
government by the superior man over men inferior to him. God is
not unjust in creating beings of unequal rank and in particular men
of unequal rank, since the equality of justice has its place in retri-
bution, but not in creation which is an act, not of justice, but of
liberality and is therefore perfectly compatible with the inequality
of gifts; God does not owe anything to His creatures.** Considering
the connection between intelligence and prudence on the one hand,
and between prudence and moral virtue on the other, one must
admit a natural inequality among men regarding morality; that
inequality is perfectly compatible with the possibility that all men
possess by nature equally the capability to comply with the prohibi-
tion against murder, for example, as distinguished from the capa-
bility of becoming morally virtuous in the complete sense or of
becoming perfect gentlemen. One reaches the same conclusion even
if one grants that the creatures have claims against God—claims
which appeal to God’s goodness or liberality, provided one under-
stands by justice not a firm will to give everyone his due, but good-
ness tempered by wisdom; for given these assumptions, even such
claims of some creatures as are justified on the ground of God's
goodness might have to be denied on grounds of His wisdom, i.
of His concern with the common good of the universe.®° Equivalent
considerations led Plato to trace vice to ignorance and to make
*CE£. Plato, Timaeus 41e8-4 and 90e6ff. Cf. Gorgias 526e1-4, Republic
379c5-7, 380a7-b8, 617e1-5.
*S. th. L q. 21. a.1, q. 23. a. 5., q. 65. a. 2., gq. 96. a. 3-4.; 8S. c. G. 1 44.
© Leibniz, Principes de la Nature et de la Grdce sect. 7, Monadologie
sect. 50-51, 54, Théodicée sect. 151, 215.
39
THE CITY AND MAN
knowledge the preserve of men endowed with particularly good
natures. As for Aristotle, it may suffice, here to say that moral virtue
as he understands it is not possible without “equipment” and that
for this reason alone, to say nothing of natural inequality, moral
virtue in the full sense is not within the reach of all men.
For a better understanding of the classical view, one does well
to cast a glance at that kind of egalitarianism which is most char-
acteristically modern. According to Rousseau, through the founda-
tion of society, natural inequality is replaced by conventional equal-
ity; the social contract which creates society is the basis of morality,
of moral freedom or autonomy; but the practice of moral virtue, the
fulfillment of our duties to our fellow men is the one thing needful.**
A closer analysis shows that the core of morality is the good will as
distinguished from the fulfillment of all duties; the former is equally
within the reach of all men, whereas as regards the latter natural
inequality necessarily asserts itself. But it cannot be a duty to re-
spect that natural inequality, for morality means autonomy, i.e. not
to bow to any law which a man has not imposed upon himself.
Accordingly, man’s duty may be said to consist in subjugating the
natural within him and outside of him to that in him to which
alone he owes his dignity, to the moral law. The moral law demands
from each virtuous activity, i.e. the full and uniform development
of all his faculties and their exercise jointly with others. Such a
development is not possible as long as everyone is crippled as a
consequence of the division of labor or of social inequality. It is
therefore a moral duty to contribute to the establishment of a so-
ciety which is radically egalitarian and at the same time on the
highest level of the development of man. In such a society, which
is rational precisely because it is not natural, i.e. because it has won
the decisive battle against nature, everyone is of necessity happy
if happiness is indeed unobstructed virtuous activity; it is a society
which therefore does no longer have any need for coercion.*? There
may be some relics of natural inequality which are transmitted by
“ Cf. Contrat Social 1 8-9 with the thesis of the First Discourse.
“ Cf. Fichte, Ueber die Bestimmung des Gelchrten I-III on the one hand,
Marx-Engels, Die Deutsche Ideologie (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1953) 27-30, 68-
69, 74, 221, 414-415, 449, and Marx, Die Fruehschriften (ed. Landshut) 233
and 290-295 on the other. Cf. the treatment of natural inequality by Hegel
in his Rechtsphilosophie sect. 200.
40
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
the natural process of procreation, but they will gradually disappear
since, as one can hope, the acquired faculties can also b2come in-
herited, to say nothing of human measures which may have to be
taken during the transition period in whicn coercion cannot yet he
dispensed with.—
For Aristotle, natural inequality is a sufficient justification for
the non-egalitarian character of the city and is as it were part of the
proof that the city is the natural association par excellence. The city
is by nature, fe. the city is natural to man; in founding cities men
only execute what their nature inclines them to do. Men are by
nature inclined to the city because they are by nature inclined to
happiness, to living together in a manner which satisfies the needs
of their nature in proportion to the natural rank of these needs; the
city, one is tempted to say, is the only association which is capable
of being dedicated to the life of excellence. Man is the only earthly
being inclined toward happiness and he is capable of happiness.
This is due to the fact that he is the only animal which possesses
reason or speech, or which strives for seeing or knowing for its own
sake, or whose soul is somehow “all things”: man is the microcosm.
There is a natural harmony between the whole and the human
mind. Man would not be capable of happiness if the whole of which
he is a part were not friendly to him. Man could not live if nature
did not supply him with food and his other wants: nature has made,
if not all animals, at least most of them for the sake of man, al-
though not necessarily exclusively for this purpose, so that man acts
according to nature if he captures or kills the animals useful to
him.®? One may describe this view of the relation of man to the
whole as “optimism” in the original sense of the term: the world is
the best possible world; we have no right to assume that the evils
with which it abounds, and especially the evils which do not origi-
nate in human folly, could have been absent without bringing about
still greater evils; man has no right to complain and to rebel. This
is not to deny but to assert that the nature of man is enslaved in
many ways so that only very few, and even these not always, can
achieve happiness or the highest freedom of which man is by nature
capable, so that the city actually dedicated to human excellence is,
© Politics 1252b27-1253a2, 1253a9-10, 1256b7~24, 1280b33-1281a2; Eth.
Nic. 1178b24-28; On the Soul 431b21~28.
jt
fray
5,
THE CITY AND MAN
to say the least, very rare, and so that chance rather than human
reason seems to be responsible for the various laws laid down by
men."
Aristotle was compelled to defend his view of happiness or of the
end of man against the poets’ assertion that the divine is envious of
man's happiness or bears malice to man.** He did not take seriously
this assertion. It was taken un after his time in a considerably modi-
fied form: the whole as we know it is the work of an evil god or
demon, as distinguished from the good or highest god; hence, the
end toward which man is inclined as part of the visible whole or by
nature, cannot be good. This view presupposes that man possesses
knowledge of true goodness as distinguished from natural goodness;
he cannot know true goodness by his natural powers, for otherwise
the visible whole would not be simply bad; but for this reason the
alleged knowledge of true goodness lacks cogency. Let us then turn
to the modem criticism of Aristotle’s principle. It does not suffice to
say that the new, anti-Aristotelian science of the seventeenth cen-
tury rejected final causes, for the classical “materialists” had done
the same and yet not denied, as the modern anti-Aristotelians did,
that the good life is the life according to nature and that “Nature
has made the necessary things easy to supply.” If one ponders over
the facts which Aristotle summarizes by saying that our nature is
enslaved in many ways, one easily arrives at the conclusion that
nature is not a kind mother but a harsh stepmother to man, i.e.
that the true mother of man is not nature. What is peculiar to mod-
ern thought is not this conclusion by itself but the consequent
resolve to liberate man from that enslavement by his own sustained
effort. This resolve finds its telling expression in the demand for the
“conquest” of nature: nature is understood and treated as an enemy
who must be subjugated. Accordingly, science ceases to be proud
contemplation and becomes the humble and charitable handmaid
devoted to the relief of man’s estate. Science is for the sake of
power, i.e. for putting at our disposal the means for achieving our
natural ends. Those ends can no longer include knowledge for its
own sake; they are reduced to comfortable self-preservation. Man
as the potential conqueror of nature stands outside of nature. This
“ Metaphysics 982b29 (cf. Plato, Phaedo 66d1-2 and context); Eth. Nic.
1154b7; Politics 1831b39-1332a3, 1832229-S1; Plato, Laws 709a-b. ~
LA “ Metaphysics 982b32-983a4.
vo
42
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
presupposes that there is no natural harmony between the human
mind and the whole. The belief in such harmony appears now as a
wishful or good-natured assumption. We must reckon with the
possibility that the world is the work of an evil demon bent on
deceiving us about himself, the world, and ourselves by means of
the faculties with which he has supplied us or, which amounts to
the same thing, that the world is the work of a blind necessity
which is utterly indifferent as to whether it'end its product ever
becomes known. Surely we have no right to trust in our natural
faculties; extreme skepticism is required. I can trust only in what
is entirely within my control: the concepts which I consciously
make and of which I do not claim more than that they are my con-
_ structs, and the naked data as they impress themselves upon me
and of which I do not claim more than that I am conscious of them
without having made them. The knowledge which we need for the
conquest of nature must indeed be dogmatic, but its dogmatism
must be based on extreme skepticism; the synthesis of dogmatism
and skepticism eventually takes the form of an infinitely progressive
science as a system or agglomeration of confirmed hypotheses which
remain exposed to revision in infinitum. The break with the primary
or natural understanding of the whole which is presupposed by the
new dogmatism based on extreme skepticism leads to the transfor-
mation and eventually to the abandonment of the questions which
on the basis of the primary understanding reveal themselves as the
most important questions; the place of the primary issues is taken
by derivative issues. This shift may be illustrated by the substitution
of “culture” for “city.” .
From what has been said it follows that the modern posture
both demands and cannot admit natural ends. The difficulty is indi-
cated by the term “state of nature” which means no longer a com-
pleted or perfected but the initial state of man. This state is, be-
cause it is entirely natural, not only imperfect but bad: the war of
everybody against everybody. Man is not by nature social, ie.
Nature dissociates men. This however means that nature compels
man to make himself social; only because nature compels man to
avoid death as the greatest evil can man compel himself to become
and to be a citizen. The end is not something towards which man
is by nature inglined but something towards which he is by nature
compelled; more precisely, the end does not beckon man but it must
be invented by man so that he can escape from his natural misery.
43
THE CITY AND MAN
Nature supplies men with an end only negatively: because the state
of nature is intolerable This would seem to be the root of what
Nietzsche discerned as the essentially ascetic character of modern
morality. Man conquers nature (universal compulsion) because
nature compels him to do so. The result is freedom. It looks as if
freedom were the end towards which nature tends. But this is surely
not what is meant. The end is not natural but only devised by man
against nature and only in this sense devised on the basis of nature.
According to Aristotle, man is by nature meant for the life of
human excellence; this end is universal in the sense that no man’s
life can be understood, or seen as what it is, except in the light of
that end. That end however is very rarely achieved. Must there
not then be a natural obstacle to the life of human excellence as
Aristotle understood it? Can that life be the life according to na-
ture? To discover a truly universal end of man as man, one must
seek primarily not for the kind of natural laws for which a certain
Aristotelian tradition sought, i.e. “normative” laws, laws which can
be transgressed and which perhaps are more frequently transgressed
than observed, but for natural laws as laws which no one can
transgress because everyone is compelled to act according to them.
Laws of the latter kind, it was hoped, would be the solid basis of a
new kind of “normative” laws which as such can indeed be trans-
gressed but are much less likely to be transgressed than the norma-
tive laws preached up by the tradition. The new kind of normative
laws did no longer claim to be natural laws proper; they were
rational laws in contradistinction to natural laws; they eventually
become “ideals.”** The ideal “exists” only by virtue of human reason-
ing or “figuring out”; it exists only “in speech.” It has then an en-
tirely different status from the end or perfection of. man in classical
political philosophy; it has however the same status as the best
political order (the best regime) in classical political philosophy.
One must keep this in mind if one wishes to understand the politi-
cization of philosophic thought in modern times or in other words
the obsolescence in moder thought of the distinction between na-
ture and convention.
The fundamental change which we are trying to describe shows
“ Hobbes, De Cive I 2, Leviathan ch. 13 and ch. 15 (see both versions);
Spinoza, Tr. theol.-pol. IV sect. 1-5 (Bruder), Ethics IV praef.; Locke, Essay
YW 11.15.
44
8H
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
itself in the substitution of “the rights of man” for “the natural law”:
“law” which prescribes duties ha; been replaced by “rights,” and
“nature” has been replaced by “man.” The rights of man are the
moral equivalent of the Ege cogitans. The Ego cogitans has emanci-
pated itself entirely from “the tutelage of nature” and eventually
refuses to obey any law which it has not originated in its entirety
or to dedicate itself to any “value! of which it does not know that
it is its own creation.—
It is not sufficient to say nen the theme of the Politics is not the
Greek city-state but the polis (the city): the theme of the Politics
is the politeia (the regime), the “form” of a city. This appears im-
mediately from the beginnings of each book of the Politics except
the first.” At the beginning of the first book, Aristotle deals with the
city without raising the question of the regime because his first task
is to establish the dignity of the city as such: he must show that the
city as city is by nature, ie. that the city as essentially different
from the household and other natural associations is by nature, for
some men had denied that there is an essential difference between
the city and the household, to say nothing of those who had denied
that there are any natural associations. One may say that at the
beginning of the Politics, Aristotle presents the city as consisting of
certain associations as its parts. However this may be, at the begin-
ning of the third book, he presents as parts of the city not other
associations, not even human individuals, but the citizens.® It ap-
pears that “citizen” is relative to “regime,” to the political order: a
man who would be a citizen in a democracy would not necessarily
be a citizen in an oligarchy, and so on. Whereas the consideration
of those “parts” of the city which are the natural associations re-
mains on the whole politically neutral, the consideration of those
parts of the city which are the citizens necessarily becomes involved
in a divisive, a political issue: by raising the question of what the
citizen is, Aristotle approaches the core of ‘the political question
par excellence. What is true of the citizen is true of the good citizen,
since the activity or the work of the citizen belongs to the same
genus as that of the good citizen:®° “good citizen,” in contradistinc-
tion to “good man,” too is relative to “regime”; obviously a good
* Cf. also Eth. Nic. 1181b12-23
* Politics 1252a7-23, 1253a8-10, 1274b38-41.
*@ Eth. Nic. 1098a8-11.
46
THE CITY AND MAN
Communist cannot but be a bad citizen in a liberal democracy and
vice versa. The regime is the “form” of the city in contradistinction
to its “matter,” that matter consisting above all of the human beings
who inhabit the city in so far as they are considered as not formed
by any regime. The citizen as citizen does not belong to the matter,
for who is or is not a citizen depends already on the form.’ The
form is higher in dignity than the matter because of its direct con-
nection with the “end”: the character of a given city becomes clear
to us only if we know of what kind of men its preponderant part
consists, i.e. to what end these men are dedicated.
Aristotle apparently draws the conclusion that a change of regime
transforms a given city into another city. This conclusion seems to
be paradoxical, not to say absurd: it seems to deny the obvious
continuity of a city in spite of all changes of regime. For is it not
obviously better to say that the same France which was first an
absolute monarchy became thereafter a democracy than to say that
democratic France is a different country from monarchic France?
Or, generally stated, is it not better to say that the same “substance”
takes on successively different “forms” which, compared with the
“substance,” are “mere” forms? It goes without saying that Aristotle
was not blind to the continuity of the “matter” as distinguished
from the discontinuity of the “forms”; he did not say that the same-
ness of a city depends exclusively on the sameness of the regime, for
in that case there could not be, for instance, more than one demo-
cratic city; he says that the sameness of a city depends above all on
the sameness of the regime.”? Nevertheless what he said runs counter
to our notions. It does not run counter to our experience. In order
to see this, one must follow his presentation more closely than is
usually done. He starts from an experience. Immediately after a city
has become democratic, the democrats sometimes say of a certain
action (say, of a certain contractual obligation) that it is the action
not of the city but of the deposed oligarchs or tyrant, The democrat,
the partisan of democracy, implies that when there is not democ-
racy, there is no city. It is no accident that Aristotle refers to a
statement made by democrats as distinguished from oligarchs; per-
haps the oligarchs will only say, after the transformation of the oli-
garchy into a democracy, that the city is going to pieces, leaving us
" Politics 1274638, 127547-8.
"4 Politics 1276b3-11.
46
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
wondering whether a city which is going to pieces can still be said
simply to be. Let us sav then that for the partisan of any regime
the city “is” only if it is informed by the regime which he favors.
There are other people, the moderate and sober people, who reject
this extreme view and therefore say that the change of regime is a
surface event which does not affect the being of the city at all.
Those people will say that, however relative the citizen may be to
the regime, the good citizen is a man who serves his city well under
any regime. Let us call these men the patriots. The partisans will
call them turncoats.’? Aristotle disagrees with both the partisans and
the patriots. He says that a change of regime is much more radical
than the patriots admit but less radical than the partisans contend:
through a change of regime, the city does not cease to be but be-
comes another city—in a certain respect, indeed in the most impor-
tant respect; for through a change of regime the political community
becomes dedicated to an end radically different from its earlier end.
In making his apparently strange assertion, Aristotle thinks of the
highest end to which a city can be dedicated, namely, human ex-
cellence: is any change which a city can undergo comparable in
importance to its turning from nobility to baseness or vice versa?
We may say that his point of view i8 not that of the patriot or the
ordinary partisan, but that of the partisan of excellence. He does
not say that through a change of regime a city becomes another
city in every respect. For instance, it will remain the same city in
regard to obligations which the preceding regime has undertaken.
He fails to answer the question regarding such obligations, not be-
cause he cannot answer it, but because it is not a political question
strictly speaking, but rather a legal question.’* It is easy to discern
the principle which he would have followed in answering this legal
question because he was a sensible man: if the deposed tyrant
undertook obligations which are beneficial to the city, the city ought
to honor them; but if he undertook the obligations merely in order
to feather his own nest, the city is not obliged to honor them.
In order to understand Aristotle’s thesis asserting the supremacy
of the regime, one has only to consider the phenomenon now known
as loyalty. The loyalty demanded from every citizen is not mere
loyalty to the bare country, to the country irrespective of the regime,
Aristotle, Resp. Ath. 28.5; cf. Xenophon, Hellenica It $.80-S1.
™ Politics 1276b10-15; cf. 1286a2-4.
47
THE CITY AND MAN
but to the country informed by the regime, by the Constitution. A
Facist or Communist might claim that he undermines the Constitu-
tion of the United States out of loyalty to the United States, for in
his opinion the Constitution is bad for the people of the United
States; but his claim to be a loyal citizen would not be recognized.
Someone might say that the Constitution could be constitutionally
changed so that the regime would cease to be a liberal democracy
and become either Fascist or Communist and that every citizen of
the United States would then be expected to be goyal\to Fascism or
Communism; but no one loyal to liberal democracy who knows
what he is doing would teach this doctrine precisely because it is
apt to undermine loyalty to liberal democracy. Only when a regime
is in a state of decay can its transformation into another regime
become publicly defensible—We have come to distinguish be-
tween legality and legitimacy: whatever is legal in a given society
derives its ultimate legitimation from something which is the source
of all law ordinary or constitutional, from the legitimating principle,
be it the sovereignty of the people, the divine right of kings, or
whatever else. The legitimating principle is not simply justice, for
there is a variety of principles of legitimacy. The legitimating prin-
ciple is not natural law, for natural law is as such neutral as
between democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy. The principle of
legitimacy is in each case a specific notion of justice: justice demo-
cratically understood, justice oligarchically understood, justice aris-
tocratically understood, and so on. This is to say, every political
society derives its character from a specific public or political
morality, from what it regards as publicly defensible, and this means
from what the preponderant part of society (not necessarily the
majority ) regards as just. A given society may be characterized by
extreme permissiveness, but this very permissiveness is in need of
being established and defended, and it necessarily has its limits:
a permissive society which permits to its members also every sort
of non-permissiveness will soon cease to be permissive; it will vanish
from the face of the earth. Not to see the city in the light of the
variety of regimes means not to look at the city as a political man
does, i.€. as a man concerned with a specific public morality does.
The variety of specific public moralities or of regimes necessarily
gives rise to the question of the best regime, for every kind of
regime claims to be the best. Therefore the guiding question of
48
ON ARISTOTLE’S POLITICS
Aristotle’s Politics is the question of the best regime. But this subject
is better discussed on another occasion.
We conclude with a remark about a seeming self-contradicg;o),
of Aristotle's regarding the highest theme of his Politics. He bag.
his thematic discussion of the best regime on the principle that the
highest end of man, happiness, is the same for the individual ang
the city. As he makes clear, this principle would be accepteg as
such by everyone. The difficulty arises from the fact that the highest
end of the individual is contemplation. He seems to solve the qigp_
culty by asserting that the city is as capable of the contemplative
life as the individual. Yet it is obvious that the city is capable at
best only of an analogue of the contemplative life. Aristotle reaches
his apparent result only by an explicit abstraction, appropriate to
a political inquiry strictly and narrowly conceived, from the fy}
meaning of the best life of the individual;* in such an inquiry the
trans-political, the supra-political—the life of the mind in contig.
distinction to political life—comes to sight only as the limit of ihe
political. Man is more than the citizen or the city. Man transcends
the city only by what is best in him. This is reflected in the fact
that there are examples of men of the highest excellence whereas
there are no examples of cities of the highest excellence, i.e. of the
best regime—that men of the highest excellence (Plato and Aristotle)
are known to have lived in deed, whereas of the best regime it ;,
known only that it necessarily “lives” in speech. In asserting that
man transcends the city, Aristotle agrees with the liberalism of the
modern age. Yet he differs from that liberalism by limiting ¢4;,
transcendence only to the highest in man. Man transcends the g;
only by pursuing true happiness, not by pursuing happiness how.
ever understood.
* Politics 1823b40-1825b32; see particularly 1324a19-23. Consider, how.
ever, [Thomas’] Commentary on Politics VII, lectio 2.
49
Chapter II
ON PLATO'S REPUBLIC
Generally speaking, we can know the thought of a man only through
his speeches oral or written. We can know Aristotle’s political phi-
losophy through his Politics. Plato’s Republic on the other hand, in
contradistinction to the Politics, is not a treatise but a dialogue
among people other than Plato. Whereas in reading the Politics we
hear Aristotle all the time, in reading the Republic we hear Plato
never. In none of his dialogues does Plato ever say anything. Hence
we cannot know from them what Plato thought. If someone quotes
a passage from the dialogues in order to prove that Plato held such
and such a view, he acts about as reasonably as if he were to assert
that according to Shakespeare life is a tale told by an idiot, full of
sound and fury, signifying nothing. But this is a silly remark:
everyone knows that Plato speaks through the mouth not indeed
of his Protagoras, his Callicles, his Menon, his Hippias, and his
Thrasymachus, but of his Socrates, his Eleatic stranger, his Timaeus
and his Athenian stranger. Plato speaks through the mouths of his
spokesmen. But why does he use a variety of spokesmen? Why does
he make his Socrates a silent listener to his Timaeus’ and his Eleatic
stranger’s speeches? He does not tell us; no one knows the reason;
those who claim to know mistake guesses for knowledge. As long
as we do not know that reason, we do not know what it means tc
be a spokesman for Plato; we do not even know whether there is
such a thing as a spokesman for Plato. But this is still sillier: every
child knows that the spokesman par excellence of Plato is his
revered teacher or friend Socrates to whom he entrusted his own
teaching fully or in part. We do not wish to appear more ignorant
than every child and shall therefore repeat with childlike docility
that the spokesman par excellence for Plato is Socrates. But it is one
of Socrates’ peculiarities that he was a master of irony. We are back
where we started: to speak through the mouth of a man who is
50
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
notorious for his irony seems to be tantamount to not asserting any-
thing. Could it be true that Plato, like his Socrates, the master of the
‘knowledge of ignorance, did not assert anything, i.e. did not have
a teaching?
Let us then assume that the Platonic dialogues do not convey a
teaching, but, being a monument to Socrates, present the Socratic
way of life as a model. Yet they cannot tell us: live as Socrates
lived. For Socrates’ life was rendered possible by his possession of a
“demonic” gift and we do not possess such a gift. The dialogues
must then tell us: live as Socrates tells you to live; live as Socrates
teaches you to live. The assumption that the Platonic dialogues do
not convey a teaching is absurd.
Very much, not to say everything, seems to depend on what
Socratic irony is. Irony is a kind of dissimulation, or of untruthful-
ness. Aristotle therefore treats the habit of irony primarily as a vice.
Yet irony is the dissembling, not of evil actions or of vices, but
rather of good actions or of virtues; the ironic man, in opposition
to the boaster, understates his worth. If irony is a vice, it is a
graceful vice. Properly used, it is not a vice at all: the magnanimous
man—the man who regards himself as worthy of great things while
in fact being worthy of them—is truthful and frank because he is in
the habit of looking down and yet he is ironical in his intercourse
with the many. Irony is then the noble dissimulation of one’s worth,
of one’s superiority. We may say, it is the humanity peculiar to the
superior man: he spares the feelings of his inferiors by not display-
ing his superiority. The highest form of superiority is the superiority
in wisdom. Irony in the highest sense will then be the dissimulation
of one’s wisdom, i.e. the dissimulation of one’s wise thoughts. This
can take two forms: either expressing on a “wise” subject such
thoughts (e.g. generally accepted thoughts) as are less wise than
one’s own thoughts or refraining from expressing any thoughts
regarding a “wise” subject on the ground that one does not have
knowledge regarding it and therefore can only raise questions but
cannot give any answers. If irony is essentially related to the fact
that thére is a natural order of rank among men, it follows that
irony consists in speaking differently to different kinds of people.’
While there can be no doubt that Socrates was notorious for his
* Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1108219-22; 1124b29-31; 1127a20~-26, b22-31.
* Plato, Rivals 183d8-el; cf. 184ci-6.
ol
THE CITY AND MAN
irony, it is not muct: of an exaggeration to say that irony and
kindred words “are only used of Socrates by his opponents and have
always an unfavorable meaning.” To this one could reply that
where there was so much smoke there must have been some fire or
rather that avowed irony would be absurd. But be this as it may,
we certainly must return to the beginning. One cannot understand
Plato’s teaching as he meant it if one does not know what the
Platonic -dialogue is. One cannot separate the understanding of
Plato’s teaching from the understanding of the form in which it is
presented. One must pay as much attention to the How as to the
What. At any rate to begin with one must even pay greater atten-
tion to the “form” than to the “substance,” since the meaning of the
“substance” depends on the “form.” One must postpone one’s concern
with the most serious questions (the philosophic questions) in order
to become engrossed in the study of a merely literary question. Still,
there is a connection between the literary question and the philo-
sophic question. The literary question, the question of presentation,
is concerned with a kind of communication. Communication may
be a means for living together; in its highest form, communication is
living together. The study of the literary question is therefore an
important part of the study of society. Furthermore, the quest for
truth is necessarily, if not in every respect, a common quest, a quest
taking place through communication. The study of the literary ques-
tion is therefore an important part of the study of what philosophy
is. The literary question properly understood is the question of the
relation between society and philosophy.
Plato’s Socrates discusses the literary question—the question
concerning writings—in the Phaedrus. He says that writing is an
invention of doubtful value. He thus makes us understand why he
abstained from writing speeches or books. But Plato wrote dia-
logues. We may assume that the Platonic dialogue is a kind of
writing which is free from the essential defect of writings. Writings
are essentially defective because they are equally accessible to all
who can read or because they do not know to whom to talk and
to whom to be silent or because they say the same things to every-
one. We may conclude that the Platonic dialogue says different
things to different people—not accidentally, as every writing does,
* Burnet on Plato, Apology of Socrates 38a1. Cf, Symposion 218d6-7 and
Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1127b25-26.
if
52
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
but that it is so contrived as to say different things to different
people, or that it is radically ironical. The Platonic dialogue, if
properly read, reveals itself to possess the flexibility or adaptability
of oral communication. What it means to read a good writing prop-
erly is intimated by Socrates in the Phaedrus when he describes the
character of a good writing. A writing is good if it complies with
“logographic necessity,” with the necessity which ought to govern
the writing of speeches: every part of the written speech must be
necessary for the whole; the place where each part occurs is the
place where it is necessary that it should occur; in a word, the good
writing must resemble the healthy animal which can do its proper
work well. The proper work of a writing is to talk to some readers
and to be silent to others. But does not every writing admittedly
talk to all readers?
Since Plato’s Socrates does not solve this difficulty for us, let us
have recourse to Xenophon’s Socrates. According to Xenophon,
Socrates’ art of conversation was twofold. When someone contra-
dicted him on any point, he went back to the assumption underlying
the whole dispute by raising the question “what is . . .” regarding
the subject matter of the dispute and by answering it step by step;
in this way the truth became manifest to the very contradictors.
But when he discussed a subject on his own initiative, i.e. when he
talked to people who merely listened, he proceeded through gener-
ally accepted opinions and thus produced agreement to an ex-
traordinary degree. This latter kind of the art of conversation which
leads to agreement, as distinguished from evident truth, is the art
which Homer ascribed to the wily Odysseus by calling him “a safe
speaker.” It may seem strange that Socrates treated the contradictors
better than the docile people. The strangeness is removed by an-
other report of Xenophon. Socrates, we are told, did not approach
all men in the same manner. He approached differently the men
possessing good natures by whom he was naturally attracted on the
one hand, and the various types of men lacking good natures on the
other. The men possessing good natures are the gifted ones: those
who are quick to learn, have a good memory and are desirous for
all worthwhile subjects of learning. It would not be strange if Soc-
rates had tried to lead those who are able to think toward the truth
and to lead the others toward agreement in salutary opinions or to
* Phaedrus 275d4-276a7 and 264b7—c5.
53
THE CITY AND MAN
confirm them in such opinions. Xenophon’s Socrates engaged in his
most blissful work only with his friends or rather his “good friends.”
For, as Plato’s Socrates says, it is safe to say the truth among sensi-
ble friends.* If we connect this information with the information de-
rived from the Phaedrus, we reach this conclusion: the proper work
of a writing is truly to talk, or to reveal the truth, to some while
leading others to salutary opinions; the proper work of a writing is
to arouse to thinking those who are by nature fit for it; the good
writing achieves its end if the reader considers carefully the “logo-
graphic necessity” of every part, however small or seemingly insig-
nificant, of the writing.
But “good writing” is only the genus of which the Platonic dia-
logue is a species. The model for the good writing is the good con-
versation. But there is this essential difference between any book
and any conversation: in a book the author addresses many men
wholly unknown to him, whereas in a conversation the speaker ad-
dresses one or more men whom he knows more or less well. If the
good writing must imitate the good conversation, it would seem that
it must be addressed primarily to one or more men known to the
author; the primary addressee would then act as a representative of
that type of reader whom the author wishes to reach above all. It
is not necessary that that type should consist of the men possessing
the best natures. The Platonic dialogue presents a conversation in
which a man converses with one or more men more or less well
known to him and in which he can therefore adapt what he says to
the abilities, the characters, and even the moods of his interlocutors.
But the Platonic dialogue is distinguished from the conversation
which it presents by the fact that it makes accessible that conversa-
tion to a multitude wholly unknown to Plato and never addressed
by Plato himself. On the other hand the Platonic dialogue shows us
much more clearly than an Epistle Dedicatory could, in what man-
ner the teaching conveyed through the work is adapted by the main
speaker to his particular audience and therewith how that teaching
would have to be restated in order to be valid beyond the particular
situation of the conversation in question. For in no Platonic dialogue
do the men who converse with the main speaker possess the per-
fection of the best nature. This is one reason why Plato employs a
* Memorabilia 1 6.14, IV 1.2-2.1; cf. IV 6.18-15 with Symposion 4.56-60;
Plato, Republic 450d10~el.
54
ne otal cea all
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
variety of spokesmen: by failing to present a conversation between
Socrates and the Eleatic stranger or Timaeus, he indicates that there
is no Platonic dialogue among men who are, or could be thought
to be, equals.
One could reject the preceding observations on the ground that
they too are based chiefly and at best on what Platonic characters
say and not on what Plato himself says. Let us then return once
more to the surface. Let us abandon every pretense to know. Let us
admit that the Platonic dialogue is an enigma—something perplex-
ing and to be wondered at. The Platonic dialogue is one big ques-
tion mark. A question mark in white chalk on a blackboard is wholly
unrevealing. Two such question marks would tell us something;
they would draw our attention to the number 2. The number of
dialogues which has come down to us as Platonic is 35. Some of
them are at present generally regarded as spurious; but the atheteses
ultimately rest on the belief that we know what Plato taught or
thought or what he could possibly have written or that we have ex-
hausted his possibilities. At any rate, we are confronted with many
individuals of the same kind: we can compare; we can note simi-
larities and dissimilarities; we can divide the genus “Platonic dia-
logue” into species; we can reason. Let us regard the 35 dialogues
as individuals of one species of strange things, of strange animals.
Let us proceed like zoologists. Let us start by classifying those indi-
viduals and see whether we do not hear Plato himself, as distin-
guished from his characters, speak through the surface of the sur-
face of his work. Even if we make the most unintelligent assumption
which, as it happens, is the most cautious assumption, that for all
we know the Platonic dialogues might be verbatim reports of con-
versations, the selection of these particular 35 conversations would
still be the work of Plato; for Socrates must have had more conver-
sations known to Plato than there are Platonic dialogues presenting
Socratic conversations: Socrates must have had some conversations
with Plato himself, and there is no Platonic dialogue in which Soc-
rates converses with Plato.®
While everything said in the Platonic dialogues is said by Plato's
characters, Plato himself takes full responsibility for the titles of the
dialogues. There are only four dialogues whose titles designate the
subject matter: the Republic, the Laws, the Sophist, and the States-
* Consider Republic 505a2-3.
56
THE CITY AND MAN
man. There is no Platonic Nature or Truth. The subject matter of
the dialogues as it is revealed by the titles is preponderantly polit-
ical. This suggestion is strengthened by the observation that accord-
ing to Plato's Socrates the greatest sophist is the political multitude.’
There are 25 dialogues whose titles designate the name of a human
being who in one way or another participates in the conversation
recorded in the dialogue in question; that human being is invariably
a male contemporary of Socrates; in these cases the titles are as un-
revealing or almost as unrevealing as regards the subject matter of
the dialogues in question as the titles of Anna Karenina or Madame
Bovary. Only in three cases (Timaeus, Critias, Parmenides) does
the title clearly designate the chief character of the dialogue con-
cerned. In two cases (Hipparchus and Minos) the title consists of
the name, not of a participant, but of a man of the past who is only
spoken about in the dialogue; these titles remind of the titles of
tragedies. The name of Socrates occurs only in the title Apology of
Socrates. One may say that seven titles indicate the theme of the
dialogues concerned: Republic, Laws, Sophist, Statesman, Hippar-
chus, Minos, and Apology of Socrates; the theme of the dialogues,
in so far as it is revealed by the titles, is preponderantly political.
The fact that the name of Socrates occurs in no title except that
of the Apology of Socrates is hardly an accident. Xenophon devoted
four writings to Socrates; he too mentions the name of Socrates in
no title except that of his Apology of Socrates; his most extensive
writing devoted to Socrates is called Recollections and not, as one
would expect from its content, Recollections of Socrates; Xenophon,
just as Plato, deliberately refrained from mentioning Socrates in a
title except when conjoined with “apology.” Plato’s Apology of Soc-
rates presents Socrates’ official and solemn account of his way of life,
the account which he gave to the city of Athens when he was com-
pelled to defend himself against the accusation of having committed
a capital crime. Socrates calls this account a conversation.® It is his
only conversation with the city of Athens, and it is not more than
an incipient conversation: it is rather one-sided. In this official ac-
count Socrates speaks at some length of the kind of people with
whom he was in the habit of having conversations. It appears that
he conversed with many Athenian citizens in public, in the market
* Renublic 492a8-494a6,
*37a6-7; cf. 89e1-5 and Gorgias 455a2-6.
56
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
at the tables of the money-changers. His peculiar “business” which
made him suspect to his fellow citizens consisted in examining them
with regard to their claim to be wise. He examined all who were
supposed to possess some knowledge. But he mentions in his de-
tailed statement only three kinds of such men: the politicians, the
poets, and the craftsmen. It is true that in a brief repetition he adds
the orators to the three classes mentioned before and shortly before
the repetition he says that he examined whichever Athenian or
stranger he believed to be wise.® But it cannot be denied that ac-
cording to the suggestions of the Apology of Socrates one would
expect to find more Platonic dialogues presenting Socratic conversa-
tions with Athenian common men and in particular with Athenian
politicians, craftsmen, and poets than Platonic dialogues presenting
Socratic conversations with foreign sophists, rhetoricians, and the
like. The Platonic Socrates is famous or ridiculed for speaking about
shoemakers and the like; but we never see or hear him speak to
shoemakers or the like. He converses in deed (as distinguished from
his self-presentation in his sole public speech) only with people who
are not common people—who belong in one way or the other to an
elite, although never, or almost never, to the elite in the highest
sense. Xenophon devotes a whole chapter of the Memorabilia, al-
though only one chapter, to showing how useful Socrates was to
craftsmen when he happened to converse with such people. In the
chapter following, Xenophon records a conversation between Soc-
rates and a beautiful woman of easy manners who was visiting
Athens.*° In the Platonic dialogues we find two Socratic reports
about conversations which he had with famous women (Diotima
and Aspasia) but on the stage we see and hear only one woman,
and her only once: his wife Xanthippe. Above all, Plato presents no
Socratic conversation between Socrates and men of the demos, and
in particular craftsmen; he presents only one Socratic conversation
with poets and very few with Athenian citizens who were actual or
retired politicians at the time of the conversation, as distinguished
from young men of promise. It is above all through this selection of
conversations, apart from the titles, that we hear Plato himself as
distinguished from his characters.
° Cf. 17c8-9, 19d2-8, 21e6-22a1 (and context) with 23b5-6 and 23e3-—
24a.
“ {iT 10-11.
57
THE CITY AND MAN
The division of the Platonic dialogues which comes next in obvi-
ousness is that between performed dialogues of which there are 26,
and narrated dialogues of which there are 9. The narrated dialogues
are narrated either by Socrates (6) or by someone else mentioned
by name (3) and they are narrated either to a named man (2) or
to a nameless companion (2) or to an indeterminate audience (5).
Plato is mentioned as present in the Apology of Socrates which is a
performed dialogue and as absent in the Phaedo which is a narrated
dialogue. One cannot infer from this that Plato must be thought to
_ have been present at all performed dialogues and absent from all
narrated dialogues. One must rather say that Plato speaks to us
directly, without the intermediacy of his characters, also by the fact
that he presented most of the dialogues as performed and the others
as narrated. Each of these two forms has its peculiar advantages.
The performed dialogue is not encumbered by the innumerable
repetitions of “he said” and “I said.” In the narrated dialogue on the
other hand a participant in the conversation gives an account di-
rectly or indirectly to nonparticipants and hence also to us, while
in the performed dialogue there is no bridge between the char-
acters of the dialogue and the reader; in a narrated dialogue Soc-
rates may tell us things which he could not tell with propriety to
his interlocutors, for instance why he made a certain move in the
conversation or what he thought of his interlocutors; he thus can
reveal to us some of his secrets. Plato himself does not tell us what
he means by his division of his dialogues into performed and nar-
rated ones and why any particular dialogue is either narrated or per-
formed. But he permits us a glimpse into his workshop by making
us the witnesses of the transformation of a narrated dialogue into a
performed one. Socrates had narrated his conversation with Theae-
tetus to the Megarian Euclides; Euclides, who apparently did not
have as good a memory as some other Platonic characters, had writ-
ten down what he had heard from Socrates, not indeed verbatim as
Socrates had narrated it, but “omitting . . . the narratives between
the speeches” like Socrates’ saying “I said” and “Theaetetus agreed”;
Euclides had transformed a narrated dialogue into a performed dia-
logue. The expressions used by Euclides are used by Socrates in the
Republic. As he makes clear there at great length, if a writer speaks
only as if he were one or the other of his characters, i.e. if he “omits”
” Theaetetus 142c8-143c5.
58
“a
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
“what is between the speeches” of the characters (the “a said”’s
and “b replied” ’s), the writer conceals himself completely, and his
writings are dramas.’* It is clear that the writer conceals
completely also when he does not “omit what is between the
speeches” but entrusts the narrative to one of his characters. Accord-
ing to Plato’s Socrates, we would then have to say that Plato con-
ceals himself completely in his dialogues. This does not mean that
Plato conceals his name; it was always known that Plato was the
author of the Platonic dialogues. It means that Plato conceals his
opinions. We may draw the further conclusion that the Platonic dia-
logues are dramas, if dramas in prose. They must then be read like
dramas. We cannot ascribe to Plato any utterance of any of his
characters without having taken great precautions. To illustrate this
by our example, in order to know what Shakespeare, in contradis-
tinction to his Macbeth, thinks about life, one must consider Mac-
beth’s utterance in the light of the play as a whole; we might thus
find that according to the play as a whole, life is not senseless
simply, but becomes senseless for him who violates the sacred law
of life, or the sacred order restores itself, or the violation of the law
of life is self-destructive; but since that self-destruction is exhibited
in the case of Macbeth, a human being of a particular kind, one
would have to wonder whether the apparent lesson of the play is
true of all men or universally; one would have to consider whether
what appears to be a natural law is in fact a natural law, given the
fact that Macbeth’s violation of the law of life is at least partly
originated by preternatural beings. In the same way we must under-.
stand the “speeches” of all Platonic characters in the light of the
“deeds.” The “deeds” are in the first place the setting and the action
of the individual] dialogue: on what kind of men does Socrates act
with his speeches? what is the age, the character, the abilities, the
position in society, and the appearance of each? when and where
does the action take place? does Socrates achieve what he intends?
is his action voluntary or imposed on him? Perhaps Socrates does
not primarily intend to teach a doctrine but rather to educate hu-
man beings—to make them better, more just or gentle, more aware
of their limitations. For before men can genuinely listen to a teach-
ing, they must be willing to do so; they must have become aware
of their need to listen; they must be liberated from the charms
* Republic 392c1-394c6.
59
THE CITY AND MAN
which make them obtuse; this liberation is achieved less by speech _
than by silence and deed—by the silent action of Socrates which is —
not identical with his speech. But the “deeds” also include the rele-
vant “facts” which are not mentioned in the “speeches” and yet were
known to Socrates or to Plato; a given Socratic speech which per-
suades his audience entirely may not be in accordance with the
“facts” known to Socrates. We are guided to those “facts” partly by,
the unthematic details and partly by seemingly casual remarks. It is
relatively easy to understand the speeches of the characters: every-
one who listens or reads perceives them. But to perceive what in a
sense is not said, to perceive how what is said is said, is more diffi-
cult. The speeches deal with something general or universal (e.g.
with justice), but they are made in a particular or individual set-
ting: these and those human beings converse there and then about
the universal subject; to understand the speeches in the light of the
deeds means to see how the philosophic treatment of the philosophic
theme is modified by the particular or individual or transformed
into a rhetorical or poetic treatment or to recover the implicit philo-
sophic treatment from the explicit rhetorical or poetic treatment.
Differently stated, by understanding the speeches in the light of the
deeds, one transforms the two-dimensional] into something three-
dimensional or rather one restores the original three-dimensionality.
In a word, one cannot take seriously enough the law of logographic
necessity. Nothing is accidental in a Platonic dialogue; everything
is necessary at the place where it occurs. Everything which would
be accidental outside of the dialogue becomes meaningful within
the dialogue. In all actual conversations chance plays a considerable
role: all Platonic dialogues are radically fictitious. The Platonic
dialogue is based on a fundamental falsehood, a beautiful or beauti-
fying falsehood, viz. on the denial of chance.
When Socrates explains in the Republic what a drama in contra-
distinction to other poetry is, the austere Adeimantus thinks only of
tragedy. In the same way the austere reader of the Platonic dia-
logues—and the first thing which Plato does to his readers is to make
them austere—understands the Platonic dialogue as a new kind of
tragedy, perhaps as the finest and best kind. Yet Socrates adds to
Adeimantus’ mention of tragedy the words “and comedy.”!* At this
point we are compelled to have recourse, not only to an author other
* Republic 394b8-c2.
60
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
than Plato but to an author whom Plato could not have known since
he lived many centuries after Plato’s death. The reason is this. We
have access to Plato primarily only through the Platonic tradition,
for it is that tradition to which we owe the interpretations, transla-
tions, and editions. The Platonic tradition has been for many cen-
turies a tradition of Christian Platonism. The blessings which we
owe to that tradition must not blind us however to the fact that
there is a difference between Christian and primitive Platonism.
It is not surprising that perhaps the greatest helper in the effort to
see that difference should be a Christian saint. I have in mind Sir
Thomas More. His Utopia is a free imitation of Plato’s Republic.
More’s perfect commonwealth is much less austere than Plato's.
Since More understood very well the relation between speeches and
deeds, he expressed the difference between his perfect common-
wealth and Plato’s by having his perfect commonwealth expounded
after dinner, whereas the exposition of Plato’s commonwealth takes
the place of a dinner. In the thirteenth chapter of his Dialogue of
Comfort against Tribulation More says: “And for to prove that this
life is no laughing time, but rather the time of weeping, we find that
our saviour himself wept twice or thrice, but never find we that he
laughed so much as once. I will not swear that he never did, but at
the least wise he left us no example of it. But, on the other side, he
left us example of weeping.” More must have known that exactly the
opposite is true of Plato’s—or Xenophon’s—Socrates: Socrates left us
no example of weeping, but, on the other side, he left us example
of laughing."* The relation of weeping and laughing is similar to
that of tragedy and comedy. We may therefore say that the Socrat-
ic conversation and hence the Platonic dialogue is slightly more
akin to comedy than to tragedy. This kinship is noticeable also in
Plato’s Republic which is manifestly akin to Aristophanes’ Assembly
of Women.5
Plato's work consists of many dialogues because it imitates the
manyness, the variety, the heterogeneity of being. The many dia-
“ Phaedo 115c5; Xenophon, Apology of Socrates 28.
* Cf. Assembly of Women 558-567, 590-591, 594-598, 606, 611-614,
635-643, 655-661, 673-674, and 1029 with Republic 442d10-443a7, 416d3-5,
417a6-7, 464b8-c3, 872b-c, 420a4—-5, 457c10-d3, 461c8-d2, 465b1-4, 464d7-
e7, 41Gd6-7, 493d6. Cf. Republic 451c2 with Thesmophoriazusae 151, 452b6-
c2 with Lysistrata 676-678, and 473d5 with Lysistrata 772. Consider also
420e1—421b3. ,
61
THE CITY AND MAN
logues form a kosmos which mysteriously imitates the mysterious
kosmos. The Platonic kosmos imitates or reproduces its model in
order to awaken us to the mystery of the model and to assist us in
articulating that mystery. There are many dialogues because the
whole consists of many parts. But the individual dialogue is not a
chapter from an encyclopaedia of the philosophic sciences or from
a system of philosophy, and still less a relic of a stage of Plato's
development. Each dialogue deals with one part; it reveals the
truth about that part. But the truth about a part is a partial truth,
a half truth. Each dialogue, we venture to say, abstracts from some-
thing that is most important to the subject matter of the dialogue.
If this is so, the subject matter as presented in the dialogue is
strictly speaking impossible. But the impossible—or a certain kind
of the impossible—if treated as possible is in the highest sense ridic-
ulous or, as we are in the habit of saying, comical. The core of
every Aristophanean comedy is something impossible of the kind
indicated. The Platonic dialogue brings to its completion what could
be thought to have been completed by Aristophanes.—
The Republic, the most famous political work of Plato, the most
famous political work of all times, is a narrated dialogue whose
theme is justice. While the place of the conversation is made quite
clear to us, the time, i.e. the year, is not. We lack therefore certain
knowledge of the political circumstances in which the conversation
about the political principle took place. Yet we are not left entirely
in the dark on this point. In the Republic Socrates tells the story of
a descent. The day before, he had gone down from Athens in the
company of Glaucon to the Piraeus, the seat of Athenian naval and
commercial power, the stronghold of the democracy. He had not
gone down to the Piraeus in order to have a conversation there
about justice but in order to pray to the goddess—perhaps a god-
dess new and strange to Athens—and at the same time because he
was desirous to look at a novel festival which included not only
an indigenous but also a foreign procession. When hurrying back
to town he and his companion are detained by some acquaintances
who induce them to go with them to the house of one of them, a
wealthy metic, from which they are supposed to go, after dining,
to look at a novel torchrace in honor of the goddess as well as
at a night festival. In that house they meet some other men. The
synontes (those who are together with Socrates on the occasion
and are mentioned by name) are altogether ten, only five of
62
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
whom are Athenians whereas four are metics and one a famous
foreign teacher of rhetoric. (Only six of the ten participate in
the conversation.) We are clearly at the opposite pole from Old
Athens, from the ancestral polity, the Athens of the Marathon-
fighters. We breathe the air of the new and the strange—of decay.
At any rate Socrates and his chief interlocutors, Glaucon and
Adeimantus, prove to be greatly concerned with that decay and to
think of the restoration of political health. The harshest possible in-
dictment of the reigning democracy, the novel polity favoring
novelty, which was ever uttered is uttered in the Republic without
a voice being raised in its defense. Besides, Socrates makes very
radical proposals of reform without encountering serious resistance.
Some years after the conversation, men linked to Socrates and Plato
by kinship or friendship attempted a political restoration, putting
down the democracy and restoring an aristocratic regime dedicated
to virtue and justice. Among other things they established an
authority called the Ten in the Piraeus. Yet the characters of the
Republic are different from these statesmen. Some of the characters
of the Republic (Polemarchus, Lysias, and Niceratus) were mere
victims of the latter, of the so-called Thirty Tyrants. The situation
resembles that in the Laches where Socrates discusses courage with
generals defeated or about to be defeated and in the Charmides
where he discusses moderation with future tyrants; in the Republic
he discusses justice in the presence of victims of an abortive attempt
made by most unjust men to restore justice.?° We are thus prepared
for the possibility that the restoration attempted in the Republic
will not take place on the political plane.
The character of the Socratic restoration begins to reveal itself
by the action preceding the conversation. The conversation about
justice is not altogether voluntary. When Socrates and Glaucon
hasten homeward, Polemarchus (the War Lord), seeing them from
afar, orders his slave to run after them and to order them to wait
for him. Not Socrates but Glaucon answers the slave that they will
wait. A little later Polemarchus appears in the company of Adeiman-
* Lysias, Against Eratosthenes 4-23; Xenophon, Hellenica II 8.89, 4.19,
38; Plato, Seventh Letter 324c5; Aristotle, Politics 18303b10-12 and Constitution
of ‘the Athenians 85.1. The Archon Polemarchus was the Athenian magistrate
in charge of lawsuits in which metics were involved (Aristotle, Constitution of
the Athenians 68).
63
THE CITY AND MAN
tus, Niceratus and some others not mentioned by name; the name
of Adeimantus, the most important man in this group, is put in the
center as is meet. Polemarchus, pointing to the numerical and
hence brachial superiority of his group, demands of Socrates and
Glaucon that they stay in the Piraeus. Socrates replies that they
might prevent the coercion by persuasion. Yet, Polemarchus replies,
he and his group could make themselves inimune to persuasion by
refusing to listen. Thereupon Glaucon, and not Socrates, cedes to
force. Fortunately, before Socrates too might be compelled to cede
to force, Adeimantus begins to use persuasion; he promises Socrates
and Glaucon a novel spectacle if they stay: a torchrace on horse-
back in honor of the goddess which is so exciting not because of the
goddess but because of the horses. Polemarchus following Adei-
mantus promises yet another sight for the time after dinner and
still another attraction. Thereupon Glaucon, and not Socrates, makes
the decision, his third decision: “it seems as if we should have to
stay.” The vote is now almost unanimous in favor of Socrates’ and
Glaucon’s staying in the Piraeus: Socrates has no choice but to
abide by the decision of the overwhelming majority. Ballots have
taken the place of bullets: ballots are convincing only as long as
bullets are remembered. We owe then the conversation on justice to
a mixture of compulsion and persuasion. To cede to such a mixture,
or to a kind of such a mixture, is an act of justice. Justice itself,
duty, obligation, is a kind of mixture of compulsion and persuasion,
of coercion and reason.
Yet the initiative soon passes to Socrates. Owing to his initiative,
all sight-seeing and even the dinner are completely forgotten in
favor of the conversation about justice, which must have lasted
from the afternoon until the next morning. Especially the central
part of the conversation must have taken place without the benefit
of the natural light of the sun and perhaps in artificial light (cf. the
beginning of the fifth book). The action of the Republic thus proves
to be an act of moderation, of self-control regarding the pleasures,
and even the needs, of the body and regarding the pleasures of see-
ing sights or of gratifying curiosity. This action too reveals the char-
acter of the Socratic restoration: the feeding of the body and of the
senses is replaced by the feeding of the mind. Yet was it not the
desire to see sights which had induced Socrates to go down to the
Piraeus and hence, as it happened, to expose himself to the compul-
sion to stay in the Piraeus and thus to engage in the conversation
about justice? Is Socrates punished by others or by himself for an
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
act of self-indulgence? Just as his staying in the Piraeus is due to a
combination of compulsion and persuasion, his going down to the
Piraeus was due to a combination of piety and curiosity. His de-
scending to the Piraeus would seem to remain a mystery unless we
assume that he was prompted by his piety as distinguished from
any desire. Yet we must not forget that he descended together
with Glaucon. We cannot exclude the possibility that he descended
to the Piraeus for the sake of Glaucon and at the request of Glaucon.
After all, all decisions made prior to the conversation in so far as
we could observe them were made by Glaucon. Xenophon" tells us
that Socrates, being well-disposed toward Glaucon for the sake of
Charmides and of Plato, cured him of his extreme political ambition.
In order to achieve this cure he had first to make him willing to
listen to him by gratifying him. Plato’s Socrates may have de-
scended to the Piraeus together with Glaucon who was eager to
descend, in order to find an unobtrusive opportunity for curing him:
of his extreme political ambition. Certain it is that the Republic
supplies the most magnificent cure ever devised for every form of
political ambition.
At the beginning of the conversation, Cephalus, the aged father
of Polemarchus and two other characters, occupies the center. He is
the father in the full sense, one reason being that he is a man of
wealth; wealth strengthens paternity. He stands for what seems to
be the most natural authority. He possesses the dignity peculiar to
old age and thus presents the order which is based on reverence
for the old, the old order as opposed to the present decay. We can
easily believe that the old order is superior even to any restoration.
Although he is a lover of speeches, Cephalus leaves the conversation
about justice when it has barely begun in order to perform an act
of piety, and he never returns: his justice is not in need of speeches
or reasons. After he has left, Socrates occupies the center. However
lofty Cephalus’ justice may be, it is animated by the traditional
notion of justice, and that notion is radically deficient (366d-e).
The old order is deficient, for it is the origin of the present disorder:
Cephalus is the father of Polemarchus. And assuredly, the metic
Cephalus is not the proper representative of the old order, of the old
Athenian order. The good is not identical with the paternal or
ancestral. Piety is replaced by philosophy.
Since the conversation about justice was not planned, one must.”
* Memorabilia III 6.
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THE CITY AND MAN
see how it came about. The conversation opens with Socrates’ ad-
dressing a question to Cephalus. The question is a model of pro-
priety. It gives Cephalus an opportunity to speak of everything good
which he possesses, to display his happiness as it were, and it con-
cerns the only subject of a general character about which Socrates
could conceivably learn something from him: how it feels to be
very old. Socrates surely meeis very rarely men of Cephalus’ age
(cf. Apology of Socrates 23c2) and when he does, they do not give
him as good an opportunity to ask them this question as Cephalus
does. Cephalus on the other hand converses ordinarily only with
men of his own age and they ordinarily talk about old age. Dis-
agreeing with most of his contemporaries, but agreeing with the
aged poet Sophocles, he praises old age with special regard to the
fact that old men are free from sexual desire, a raging and savage
master. Obviously Cephalus, as distinguished from Socrates, had
suffered greatly under that master when he was not yet very old;
and, as distinguished from Sophocles, who had spoken so harshly
about sexual desire when he was indelicately asked about his condi-
tion in this respect, he brings up this subject spontaneously when
_ asked about old age in general (cf. already 328d2-4). The first
point made by Socrates’ first interlocutor in the Republic concerns
the evils of eros. Old age is then worthy of praise since it brings
freedom from sensual desires or since it brings moderation. But -
Cephalus corrects himself immediately: what is relevant for a man’s
well-being is not age but character; for men of good character, even
old age is only moderately burdensome—which implies that old age
is of course more burdensome than youth. One might think of the
weakening of memory and of the sense of sight but Cephalus does
not say a word about these infirmities. How his final judgment on
old age can be true if sexual desire, that scourge of youth, is such
a very great hardship, is not easy to see. No wonder that Socrates
wonders at Cephalus’ statement. Desiring that Cephalus should re- ©
veal himself more fully, Socrates mentions the possibility that
Cephalus’ bearing old age lightly is due, not to his good character,
but to his great wealth. Cephalus does not deny that wealth is the
necessary condition for bearing old age lightly (he thus unwittingly
advises poor Socrates against becoming very old) but he denies that
it is the sufficient condition: the most important condition is good
character. Socrates gives Cephalus an occasion to speak of another
facet of his moderation—a facet which did not have to wait for old
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
age to be brought out—his moderation regarding the acquisition of
wealth; it becomes clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that Ceph-
alus’ moderation in this respect is genuine. Socrates has only one
further question (his third and last question prior to the question
regarding justice) to address to Cephalus: What in your opinion is
the greatest good which you have enjoyed through your wealth?
Cephalus himself does not regard his answer as very convincing. To
appreciate it, one needs the experience of old age which apart from
him no one else present has, or at least an equivalent experience
(cf. Phaedo 64a4-6): one must be close to believing that one is
going to die. Once one is in that state, one begins to fear that the
stories told about the things in Hades might be true: that he who
has acted unjustly here may have to undergo punishment there, and
one begins to ask oneself whether one has not done injustice to any-
one in anything. In this scrupulous search one may find that one has
involuntarily cheated someone or lied to him or that one owes some
sacrifices to a god or money to a human being. Only if one possesses
wealth can one pay those debts while there is still time. This then
is the greatest good which Cephalus enjoys from his wealth since
he has begun to believe that he is going to die. We note that the
last point, just as the first, deals with Cephalus’ present state only:
only the central point (his moderation regarding the acquisition of
wealth) deals with the whole course of his life.
Cephalus’ reply could have given occasion to more than one
question: what was the greatest good which Cephalus enjoyed from
his wealth when he was of middle age and when he was young?
how trustworthy are the stories regarding punishment after death?
is involuntary deception an unjust action? is a man as moderate as
Cephalus in regard to wealth likely ever to have acted unjustly?
Socrates raises none of these questions for they ultimately lead back
to the question which he does raise: is the view of justice implied in
Cephalus’ reply correct? is justice simply identical with truthfulness
and restoring what one has taken or received from someone? Soc-
rates seems to narrow unduly the view of the pious merchant
Cephalus who had spoken of paying what one owes to gods or men;
Socrates seems to disregard entirely Cephalus’ reference to sacrifices
to the gods. Could he have thought that bringing sacrifices means
to restore to the gods what one has received from them, since every-
thing good we have we owe to the gods (379cff.)? One cannot say
that the restoration takes place naturally, by our dying, for in that
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THE CITY AND MAN
case Cephalus would have no reason to worry about his debt to the
gods, to say nothing of the fact that Cephalus leaves everything
he owns to his children; but this fact shows also that bringing sacri-
fices is not a special case of restoring what one has received or
taken. Let us then assume that Socrates regards the bringing of
sacrifices as an act of piety as distinguished from justice (cf. 33la4
with Gorgias 507b1—3) or that he limits the conversation to justice
as distinguished from piety.
Socrates shows with ease that Cephalus’ view of justice is unten-
able: a man who has taken or received a weapon from a sane man
would act unjustly if he returned it to him when he asked for it
after having become insane; in the same way one would act un-
justly by being resolved to say nothing but the truth to a madman.
Cephalus seems to be about to concede his defeat when his son and
heir Polemarchus, acting as a dutiful son, rising in defense of his
father, takes the place of his father in the conversation. But the
opinion which he defends is not exactly the same as his father’s; if
we may make use of a joke of Socrates, Polemarchus inherits only
a half, perhaps even less than a half, of his father’s intellectual prop-
erty. Polemarchus no longer maintains that saying the truth is un-
qualifiedly required by justice. Without knowing it, he thus lays
down one of the principles of the teaching of the Republic. As ap-
pears later in the work, in a well-ordered society it is required that
one tell untruths of a certain kind to children and even to the
grown-up subjects. This example reveals the character of the discus-
sions which occur in the first book of the Republic. There Socrates
refutes a number of false opinions about justice. Yet this negative
or destructive work contains within itself the positive or edifying
assertions of the bulk of the work. Let us consider from this point
of view the three opinions on justice discussed in the first book.
Cephalus’ opinion, as taken up by Polemarchus after his father
had left both piously and laughingly, is to the effect that justice
consists in paying one’s debts. Only Cephalus’ particular preoccupa-
tion can justify this very particular view of justice. The complete
view after which he gropes is none other than the one stated in the
traditional definition of justice: justice consists in returning, leaving
or giving to everyone what he is entitled to, what belongs to him.’®
It is this view of justice with which Socrates takes issue in his dis-
“ Thomas Aquinas, S. th. 2 2 q. 58. a. 1. Cf. Cicero, Laws 119 and 45.
68
ee
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
cussion with Cephalus. In his refutation he tacitly appeals to an-
other view of justice tacitly held by Cephalus, viz. that justice is
good, not only for the giver (who is rewarded for his justice) but
also for the receiver. The two views of justice are not simply com-
patible. In some cases giving to a man what belongs to him is harm-
ful to him. Not all men make a good or wise use of what belongs
to them, of their property. If we judge very strictly, we might be
driven to say that very few people make a wise use of their prop-
erty. If justice is to be good or salutary, one might be compelled to
demand that everyone own only what is “fitting” for him,!® what is
good for him and for as long as it is good for him. We might be
compelled to demand the abolition of private property or the intro-
duction of communism. To the extent to which there is a connection
between private property and the family, one would even be com-
pelled to demand in addition the abolition of the family or the
introduction of absolute communism, i.c. of communism regarding
property, women, and children. Above all, very few people will be
able to determine exactly what things and what amount of things
are good for each individual, or at any rate for each individual who
counts, to use; only men of exceptional wisdom are able to do this.
We shall then be compelled to demand that society be ruled by
simply wise men, by philosophers in the strict sense wielding abso-
lute power. Socrates’ refutation of Cephalus’ view of justice con-
tains then the proof of the necessity of absolute communism as well
as of the absolute rule of philosophers. This proof, as is hardly nec-
essary to say, is based on the disregard of, or the abstraction from, a
number of most relevant things; it is “abstract” in the extreme. If
one wishes to understand the Republic, one must try to find out
what these disregarded things are and why they are disregarded.
The Republic itself, properly read, supplies the answers to these
questions.
Whereas the first opinion was only implied by Cephalus but
stated by Socrates (and even by him only partly), the second opin-
ion is stated by Polemarchus, although not without Socrates’ assist-
ance. To begin with, Polemarchus’ thesis presents itself as identical
with Cephalus’ thesis: undeterred by Socrates’ refutation, he appro-
priates his father’s thesis while his father is still present, bolstering
it by an additional authority, that of the poet Simonides. Only after
* Cf. 832c2 and Xenophon, Cyropaedia I 3.17.
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THE CITY AND MAN
Cephalus has left and Socrates has repeated the refutation of Ceph-
alus’ thesis does Polemarchus admit that the first opinion about
justice is wrong and that Simonides’ opinion differs from Cephalus’
opinion: Simonides’ opinion is not exposed to Socrates’ powerful ob-
jection. Simonides’ thesis as Polemarchus understands it is to the
effect that justice consists, not in giving to everyone what belongs
to him, bur in giving to everyone what is good for him. More pre-
cisely, remembering that Socrates in refuting Cephalus’ view had
spoken of what belongs to a friend (331c6), Polemarchus says in the
name of Simonides that justice consists in doing good to one’s
friends. Only when Socrates asks him about what justice requires
in regard to enemies does he say that justice also requires that one
harm one’s enemies. The view according to which justice consists
in helping one’s friends and harming one’s enemies is the only one
of the three views discussed in the first book of the Republic of
which the discussion may be said to begin and to end with a So-
cratic praise of the poets as wise men. It is also according to the
Clitophon (410a6-b1 )—the dialogue preceding the Republic in the
traditional order of Plato’s works—the only view of justice which is
Socrates’ own. Justice thus understood is obviously good, not only
to those receivers who are good to the giver but for this very reason
to the giver as well; it does not need to be supported by divine re-
wards and punishments, as does justice as understood by Cephalus;
divine retribution is therefore dropped by Polemarchus who is fol-
lowed therein by Thrasymachus. Yet Polemarchus’ view is exposed
to difficulties of its own. The difficulty is not that justice understood
in Polemarchus’ sense, as giving tit for tat, is merely reactive or
does not cover the actions by which one originally acquires friends
or enemies, for justice however understood presupposes things
which in themselves are neither just nor unjust. One might say for
instance that every human being has friends from the moment of his
birth, namely his parents (330c4-6), and therewith enemies, namely
the enemies of his family: to be a human being means to have
friends and enemies. The difficulty is rather this. If justice is taken
to be giving to others what belongs to them, the only thing which
the just man must know is what belongs to anyone with whom he
has any dealings or perhaps only what does and what does not be-
long to himself. This knowledge is supplied by law, which in prin-
ciple can be known easily by everybody through mere listening. But
if justice is giving to one’s friends what is good for them, the just
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ON PLATO'S REPUBLIC
man himself must judge; he himself must know what is good for
each of his friends; he himself must be able to distinguish correctly
his friends from his enemies. Justice must include knowledge of a
high order. To say the least, justice must be an art comparable to
medicine, the art by virtue of which one knows and produces what
is good for human bodies and therefore also knows and produces
what is bad for them. This means however that the man who is best
at healing his sick friends and poisoning his enemies is not the just
man but the physician; yet the physician is also best at poisoning
his friends. Confronted with these difficulties Polemarchus is unable
to identify the knowledge or art which goes with justice or which
is justice. His refutation takes place in three stages. In the central
stage Socrates points out to him the difficulty of knowing one’s
friends and one’s enemies. One may erroneously believe that some-
one is one’s friend or that one has been benefited by him; by bene-
fiting him one might in fact help an enemy. One might also harm
a man who does not hurt anyone, a just or good man. It seems then
better to say that justice consists in helping the just and in harming
the unjust, or, since there is no reason to help a man who is not
likely ever to help oneself and to harm a man who may have
harmed others but is not likely to harm oneself, that justice consists
in helping good men if they are one’s friends”° and in harming bad
men if they are one’s enemies. It is obvious that justice understood
as helping men who help oneself is advantageous to both parties.
But is it advantageous to harm those who have harmed one? This
question is taken up by Socrates in the third stage of his conversa-
tion with Polemarchus. Harming human beings, just as harming
dogs and horses, makes them worse. A sensible or just man will then
not harm any human being, as little as a horse or a dog (cf. Apology
of Socrates 25c3-e3 and Euthyphro 13a12~-c3). In this stage Socra-
tes makes use of the premise that justice is an art, a premise which
is discussed in the first stage but absent from the second stage.
Polemarchus, we recall, was supposed to say which art justice is.
Since justice is concerned with friends and enemies, it must be
something like the art of war (332e4-6): justice is the art which
enables men to become a fighting team each member of which helps
every other so that they can jointly defeat their enemies and inflict
on them any harm they deem good. Yet Socrates induces Pole-
*-Cf. 450d10-el with Gorgias 487a.
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THE CITY AND MAN
marchus to grant that justice is useful also in peace, in peaceful
exchange, in matters of money, but not indeed regarding the use of
money but régarding the safekeeping of money or of other things;
_ justice will then be the art of safekeeping; but that art proves to be
identical with the art of stealing: the knowledge required for safe-
keeping is identical with the knowledge required for stealing; the
_ just man thus proves to be identical with the thief, i.e. with a mani-
' festly unjust man. The argument refutes, not Polemarchus’ thesis but
the assumption that justice is an art; the identity of the honest
guard and the thief follows necessarily if one considers only the
knowledge, the intellectual part, of their work, and not their oppo-
site moral intentions. Yet Polemarchus’ thesis was altogether amoral
—this was also the reason why he had not provided for the differ-
ence between the genuine friends and the merely seeming friends;
therefore he gets what he deserves. The difficulty did not exist for
his father in whose view justice was linked to the gods who know
everything. This explanation is however not sufficient, for Socrates
does not know of moral virtue as such: virtue is knowledge. In other
words, one must raise the question: what is the intention or the will
as distinguished from knowledge? is not a good intention based on
a knowledge absent from the bad intention? is it not possible that
the good intention is identical with knowledge of a certain kind?
The good intention is based on an opinion absent from the bad
intention. But every opinion on a subject seems to point toward
knowledge of that subject. Prior to investigation we cannot even
know whether justice is not an art comparable to the art of medi-
cine, namely, the medicine of the soul or philosophy. Polemarchus’
first mistake in the conversation was his failure to stick to the
identification of justice with the art of war: justice in “peace” is the
allied individuals’ conduct toward neutrals; there is never simply
peace. Secondly, Socrates’ refutation of Polemarchus is valid only
on the premise that justice and stealing are incompatible, but at
least the compatibility of justice with lying had been established
in the conversation with his father, and the Greek word for stealing
can also mean cheating and to do anything stealthily. But by far the
most important point is the fact that the complete refutation of
Polemarchus’ thesis culminates in the thesis that justice consists
in helping the good men who are one’s friends and in not harming
anybody: it does not culminate in the thesis that justice consists in
helping everyone, and not even in the thesis that it consists in help-
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a gemsy
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
ing all good men.*! Justice is not beneficence. Perhaps Socrates
means that there are human beings whom he cannot benefit: regard-
ing fools only negative justice (abstention from harming them) is
possible; justice consists in helping the wise and in harming no one.
Remembering that according to Polemarchus’ original claim his
thesis is identical with his father’s, one might say that justice con-
sists in helpins the wise by saying the truth and giving to them
what belongs to. them and in failing to do these things to the fools,
to the madmen. However this may be, Socrates surely means also
something much more immediately important. Polemarchus’ thesis
reflects the most potent opinion regarding justice—the opinion
according to which justice means public-spiritedness or concern
with the common good, full dedication to one’s city as a particular
city which as such is potentially the enemy of other cities, or pa-
triotism. Justice thus understood consists indeed in helping one’s
friends, i.e. one’s fellow citizens, and in hating one’s enemies, i.e.
the foreigners. Justice thus understood cannot be dispensed with in
any city however just, for even the justest city is a city, a particular
or closed or exclusive society. Therefore Socrates himself demands
later on (375b-376e) that the guardians of the city be by nature
friendly to their own people and harsh or nasty to strangers. He
also demands that the non-austere poets, a great evil for the city,
be sent away to other cities (398a5-bl). Above all, he demands
that the citizens of the just city cease to regard all human beings
as their brothers and limit the feelings and actions of fraternity to
their fellow citizens alone (414d-e). Polemarchus’ opinion properly
understood is the only one among the generally known views of
justice discussed in the first book of the Republic which is entirely
preserved in the positive or constructive part of the work. This
opinion, to repeat, is to the effect that justice is full dedication to
the common good; it demands that one withhold nothing of his own
from his city; it demands therefore by itself absolute communism.
The third and last opinion discussed in the first book of the
Republic is the one maintained by Thrasymachus. The discussion
with him forms by far the largest part of the first book, although
not its central part. In a sense, however, it forms the center of the
Republic as a whole, namely, if one divides the work in accordance
with the change of Socrates’ interlocutors: (1) Cephalus-Polemarchus
* CE. Cicero, Republic I 28. Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia IV 8.11 and 1 6.5.
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THE CITY AND MAN
(father and son), (2) “Thrasymachus, (3) Glaucon and Adeimantus
(brother and brother); Thrasymachus stands alone as Socrates does
but his aloneness resembles rather that of the impious Cyclops.
Thrasymachus is the only speaker in the work who exhibits anger
and behaves discourteously and even savagely: his entry into the
debate is compared by so gentle a man as Socrates to a wild beast's
hurling itself upon him and Polemarchus as if he were about to
tear them to pieces—one might say, Thrasymachus behaves like a
graceless hater of speeches whose only weapon is force and savagery
(336b5-6; cf. 41lel and context). It seems to be entirely fitting that
the most savage man present should maintain the most savage thesis
on justice. Thrasymachus contends that justice is the advantage
of the stronger, that it is the other fellow’s good, i.e. good only for
the receiver and bad for the giver; so far from being an art, it is
folly; accordingly he praises injustice. He is lawless and shameless
in deed and in speech; he blushes only on account of the heat. And,
needless at it may be to say so, he is greedy for money and prestige.
One might say that he is Plato’s version of the Unjust Speech in
contrast to Socrates as his version of the Just Speech, with the
understanding that whereas in the Clouds the Unjust Speech is
victorious in speech, in the Republic the Just Speech is victorious
in speech. One may go so far as to say that Thrasymachus presents
Injustice incarnate, the tyrant, provided one is willing to admit that
Polemarchus presents the democrat (327c7) and Cephalus the oli-
garch. But then one would have to explain why a tyrant should be
as eager as Thrasymachus is to teach the principles of tyranny and
thus to breed competitors for himself. In addition, if one contrasts
the beginning of the Thrasymachus-section with its end (354a12-
13), one observes that Socrates succeeds in taming Thrasymachus:
Socrates could not have tamed Critias. But tameness is akin to
justice (486b10-12): Socrates succeeds in making Thrasymachus
somewhat just. He thus lays the foundation for his friendship with
Thrasymachus, a friendship never preceded by enmity (498c9-d1).
Plato makes it very easy for us to loathe Thrasymachus: for all
ordinary purposes we ought to loathe people who act and speak like
Thrasymachus and never to imitate their deeds and never to act
according to their speeches. But there are other purposes to be con-
sidered. At any rate it is most important for the understanding of
the Republic and generally that we should not behave toward
Thrasymachus as Thrasymachus behaves, i.e. angrily, fanatically,
or savagely.
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
If we look then without indignation at Thrasymachus’ indigna-
tion, we. must admit that his violent reaction to Socrates’ conver-
sation with Polemarchus is to some extent the reaction of common
sense. That conversation led up to the assertion that it is not good
for oneself to harm anyone or that justice is never harmful to anyone
including oneself. Since the city as city is a society which from time
to time must wage war, and war is inseparable from harming inno-
cent people (47la-b), the unqualified condemnation of harming
human beings is tantamount to the condemnation of even the justest
city. This objection is indeed not raised by Thrasymachus but it is
implied in his thesis. That thesis proves to be only the consequence
of an opinion which is not only not manifestly savage but even
highly respectable. When Thrasymachus has become dumbfounded
for the first time by Socrates’ reasoning, Polemarchus avails himself
of this opportunity to express his agreement with Socrates most
vigorously. Thereupon Clitophon, a companion of Thrasymachus
just as Polemarchus is a companion of Socrates (cf. also 336b7 and
340c2), rises in defense of Thrasymachus. In this way there begins
a short dialogue between Polemarchus and Clitophon, consisting
altogether of seven speeches. In the center of this intermezzo we
find Clitophon’s statement that according to Thrasymachus justice
consists in obeying the rulers. But to obey the rulers means in the
first place to obey the laws laid down by the rulers (338d5-e6).
Thrasymachus’ thesis is then that justice consists in obeying the law
or that the just is identical with the lawful or legal, or with what
the customs or laws of the city prescribe. This thesis is the most
obvious, the most natural, thesis regarding justice.?* It deserves to
be noted that the most obvious view of justice is not explicitly
mentioned, let alone discussed at all in the Republic. One may say
that it is the thesis of the city itself: no city permits an appeal
from its laws. For even if a city admits that there is a law higher
than the law of the city, that higher law must be interpreted by.
properly constituted authority which is either instituted by the city
or else constitutes a commonwealth comprising many cities in which
commonwealth the just is again the legal. If the just is then identical
with the legal, the source of justice is the will of the legislator. The
legislator in each city is the regime: the tyrant, the common people,
the men of excellence, and so on. Each regime lays down the laws
” Republic 359a4; Gorgias 504d1-8; Xenophon, Memorabilia TV 4.1, 12;
6.5-6; Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1129a82-34.
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THE CITY AND MAN
with a view to its own preservation and well-being, to its own
advantage. From this it follows that obedience to the laws or justice
is not necessarily to the advantage of those who do not belong to
the regime or of the ruled but may be bad for them. One might
think that the regime could lay down the laws with a view to the
common good of the rulers and the ruled. That common good would
be good intrinsically, not merely by virtue of enactment or agree-
ment; it would be what is by nature just; it would be right inde-
pendent of, and higher than, what the city declares to be right;
justice would not then be primarily and essentially legality—con-
trary to the thesis of the city. Since the thesis of the city excludes
then a natural common good, that thesis leads to the conclusion that
justice or obedience to the laws is necessarily to the advantage of
the ruled and bad for them. And as for the rulers, justice simply
does not exist; they are “sovereign.” Justice is bad because it does
not aim at a natural good which can only be an individual’s good.
The understanding required for taking care of one’s own good is
prudence. Prudence requires either that one disobey the laws when-
ever one can escape punishment—to that extent prudence is in
need of forensic rhetoric—or else that one become a tyrant since
only the tyrant can pursue his own good without any regard what-
ever for others. Thrasymachus’ thesis—the thesis of “legal positiv-
ism”—is nothing less than the thesis of the city which thesis destroys
itself.
Let us now reconsider the first two opinions. According to
Cephalus’ opinion, justice consists in giving, leaving, or restoring
to everyone what he is entitled to, what belongs to him. But what
belongs to a man is determined by the law. Justice in Cephalus’
sense is then only a subdivision of justice in Thrasymachus’ sense.
(In Aristotelian terms, particular justice is implied in universal
justice.) The first and the third opinions on justice belong together.
The law determining what belongs to a man may be unwise, i.e.
it may assign to a man what is not good for him; only wisdom, as
distinguished from law, fulfills the function of justice, i.e. of assign-
ing to each what is truly good for him, what is good for him by
nature. But is this view of justice compatible with society? Pole-
marchus’ view of justice, which does not imply the necessity of law,
takes care of this difficulty: justice consists in helping one’s friends
as fellow citizens, in dedicating oneself to the common good. But is
this view of justice compatible with concern for the natural good of
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
each? The positive part of the Republic will have to show whether
or how the two conflicting views of justice—which are reflected in
the two views that justice is legality or law-abidingness*® and that
justice is dedication to the city—can be reconciled. Here we merely
note that Polemarchus who had eventually abandoned his father’s
thesis also turns against Thrasymachus: on the primary level Pole-
marchus and Socrates belong together as defenders of the common
good.
The brief dialogue between Polemarchus and Clitophon shows
that the dialogue between Socrates and Thrasymachus, or at any
rate its initial part, has the character of a lawsuit. The defendant is
Socrates: Thrasymachus accuses Socrates of wrongdoing. It is a
demand of justice that “the other party,” i.e. Thrasymachus, also
receive a fair hearing. Everyone listens to what Socrates tells us
about Thrasymachus. But we must also pay attention to what
Thrasymachus thinks of Socrates. Socrates thinks that Thrasymachus
behaves like a wild beast; Socrates is entirely innocent and on the
defensive. Thrasymachus has met Socrates before. His present ex-
asperation is prepared by his experience in his earlier meeting or
meetings with Socrates. He is sure that Socrates is ironic, ie. a
dissembler, a man who pretends to be ignorant while in fact he
knows things very well; far from being ignorant and innocent he is
clever and tricky; and he is ungrateful. The immoral Thrasymachus
is morally indignant whereas moral Socrates is, or pretends to be,
merely afraid. At any rate, after Thrasymachus’ initial outburst
Socrates offers an apology for any mistake he and Polemarchus may
have committed. Thrasymachus in his turn behaves not merely
like an accuser but like a man of the highest authority. He simply
forbids Socrates to give certain answers to his questions. At a given
moment he asks Socrates: “what in your estimate should be done
to you?” The penalty which Socrates thereupon proposes is in fact
a gain, a reward, for him. Thereupon Thrasymachus demands that
Socrates should pay him money. When Socrates replies that he has
no money, Glaucon steps forth and declares that “all of us will
contribute for Socrates.” The situation strikingly resembles the one
on Socrates’ day in court when he was accused by the city of Athens
of having given a “forbidden answer’—an answer forbidden by the
* For the understanding of the connection between “law” and “the good
of the individual,” cf. Minos 317d3ff.
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THE CITY AND MAN
city of Athens—and when Glaucon’s brother Plato among others
vouched for a fine to be paid by Socrates. Thrasymachus acts like
the city, he resembles the city, and this means according to a way
of reasoning acceptable to both Socrates and Thrasymachus (350c7~
8), Thrasymachus is the city. It is because he is the city that he
maintains the thesis of the city regarding justice and that he is
angry at Socrates for his implicit antagonism to the thesis of the
city. But obviously Thrasymachus is not the city. He is only a
caricature of the city, a distorted image of the city, a kind of imita-
tion of the city: he imitates the city; he plays the city. He can play
the city because he has something in common with the city. Being
a rhetorician, he resembles the sophist, and the sophist par excel-
lence is the city (492aff.; Gorgias 465c4-5). Thrasymachus’ rhetoric
was especially concerned with both arousing and appeasing the
angry passions of the multitude, with both attacking a man’s char-
acter and counteracting such attacks, as well as with play-acting
as an ingredient of oratory.2* When making his appearance in the
Republic, Thrasymachus plays the angry city. It will become clear
later in the Republic that anger is no mean part of the city.
That Thrasymachus’ anger or spiritedness is not the core of his
being but subordinate to his art becomes clear as his conversation
with Socrates proceeds, Socrates draws his attention to the difficulty
caused by the fact that the rulers who lay down the laws with
exclusive regard to their own advantage may make mistakes. In that
case they will command actions which are harmful to them and
advantageous to their subjects; by acting justly, i.e. by obeying the
laws, the subjects will then benefit themselves, or justice will be
good. In other words, on Thrasymachus’ hypothesis, the well-being
of the subjects depends entirely on the folly of the rulers. When
this difficulty is pointed out to him, Thrasymachus declares after
some hesitation due to his slow comprehension that the rulers are
not rulers if and when they make mistakes: the ruler in the strict
sense is infallible, just as the other possessors of knowledge, the
craftsmen and the wise in the strict sense, are infallible. It is this
Thrasymachean notion of “the knower in the strict sense” trans-
formed with the help of Socrates into that of “the artisan in the
strict sense” which Socrates uses with great felicity against Thrasy-
machus. For the artisan in the strict sense proves to be concerned,
* Phaedrus 267c7—d2; Aristotle, Rhetoric 1404a13.
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a
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
not with his own advantage, but with the advantage of the others
whom he serves: the shoemaker makes shoes for others and only
accidentally for himself; the physician prescribes things to his
patients with a view to their advantage; hence, if ruling is, as
Thrasymachus admitted, something like an art, the rulers serve the
ruled, i.e. rule for the advantage of the ruled. The artisan in the
strict sense is infallible, i.e. does his job well, and he is only con-
cerned with the well-being of others. This however means that art
strictly understood is justice—justice in deed and not merely justice
in intention as law-abidingness is. “Art is justice’—this proposition
reflects the Socratic assertion that virtue is knowledge. The sug-
gestion emerging from Socrates’ discussion with Thrasymachus leads
to the conclusion that the just city will be an association in which
everyone is an artisan in the strict sense, a city of craftsmen or
artificers, of men (and women) each of whom has a single job
which he does well and with full dedication, i.e. without minding
his own advantage, only for the good of others or for the common
good. This conclusion pervades the whole teaching of the Republic.
The city constructed therein as a model is based on the principle “one
man one job” or “each should mind his own business.” The soldiers
in it are “artificers” of the freedom of the city (395c); the philoso-
phers in it are “artificers” of the whole common virtue (500d);
there is an “artificer” of heaven (530a); even God is presented as
an artisan—as the artificer even of the eternal ideas (507c, 597). It
is because citizenship in the just city is craftsmanship of one kind
or another, and the seat of craft or art is in the soul and not in the
body, that the difference between the two sexes loses its importance,
or the equality of the two sexes is established (452c—455a; cf. 452a).
The best city is an association of artisans: it is not an association of
gentlemen who “mind their own business” in the sense that they
lead a retired or private life (496d6), nor an association of the
fathers.
Thrasymachus could have avoided his downfall if he had left
matters at the common sense view according to which rulers are
of course fallible (340cl-5) or if he had said that all laws are
framed by the rulers with exclusive regard to their apparent (and
not necessarily true) advantage. Yet since he is or rather plays the
city, his choice of the alternative which proves fatal to him was
inevitable. If the just is to remain the legal, if there is to be no
appeal from the laws and the rulers, the rulers must be infallible;
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THE CITY AND MAN
if the laws are bad for the subjects, the laws will lose all respect-
ability if they are not at least good for the rulers. This however
means that the laws owe their dignity to an art; that art-may even
make the laws superfluous as is indicated by the facts that accord-
ing to Thrasymachus the “lawgiver” may be a tyrant, i.e. a ruler
who according to a common view rules without laws, and that the
rule exercised by the arts is as such absolute rule (Statesman 293a6-—
c4). Not law but art is productive of justice. Art takes the place of
law. Yet the time when Thrasymachus could play the city has gone.
Since in addition we know that he is not a noble man, we are
entitled to suspect that he made his fatal choice with a view to his
own advantage. He was a famous teacher of rhetoric. Hence, inci-
dentally, he is the only man professing an art who speaks in the
Republic. The art of persuasion is necessary for persuading rulers,
and especially ruling assemblies, at least ostensibly of their true
advantage. Even the rulers themselves need the art of persuasion
in order to persuade their subjects that the laws which are framed
with exclusive regard to the benefit of the rulers serve the benefit
of the subjects. Thrasymachus’ own art stands and falls by the view
that prudence is of the utmost importance for ruling. The clearest
expression of this view is the proposition that the ruler who makes
mistakes is not a ruler at all. To praise art is conducive to Thrasy-
machus’ private good.
If art as essentially serving others is just and if Thrasymachus is
the only artisan present, it follows that Socrates has beaten Thrasy-
machus soundly but must tacitly admit that Thrasymachus is against
his will and without his knowledge the justest man present. Let us
then consider his downfall somewhat more closely. One may say
that that downfall is caused not by a stringent refutation nor by an
accidental slip on his part, but by the conflict between his deprecia-
tion of justice and the implication of his art: there is some truth
to the view that art is justice. Against this one could say—and as a
matter of fact Thrasymachus himself says—that Socrates’ conclusion,
according to which no ruler or other artisan ever considers his own
advantage, is very simple-minded. As regards the artisans proper
they consider of course the compensation which they receive for
their work. It may be true that to the extent to which the physician
is concerned with what is characteristically called his honorarium,
he does not exercise the art of medicine, but the art of money-
making; but since what is true of the physician is true of the shoe-
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
maker and of any other craftsman as well, one would have to say
that the only universal art, the art accompanying all arts, the art
of arts, is the art of money-making; one must therefore further say
that serving others or being just becomes good for the artisan (the
giver) only through his practicing the art of money-making or that
no man is just for the sake of justice or that no one likes justice as
such, Differently stated, Socrates and Polemarchus sought in vain
for the art which is justice; in the meantime we have seen that art
as art is just; justice is not one art among many but pervades all
arts; but the only art pervading all arts is the art of money-making;
as a matter of fact, we call an artisan just with a view less to his
exercise of his art than to his conduct regarding the compensation
which he demands for his work; but the art of money-making as
distinguished from the arts proper is surely not essentially just:
many men who are most proficient in money-making are not just;
hence the essentially just arts are ultimately in the service of an art
which is not essentially just. Thrasymachus’ view, according to
which the private good is supreme, triumphs.
But the most devastating argument against Socrates is supplied
by the arts which are manifestly devoted to the most ruthless and
calculating exploitation of the ruled by the rulers. Such an art is
the art of the shepherd—the art wisely chosen by Thrasymachus in
order to destroy Socrates’ argument, especially since kings and other
rulers had been compared to shepherds from the oldest times. The
shepherd is surely concerned with the well-being of his flock—so
that the sheep may supply men with the juiciest lamb chops. If we
are not fooled by the touching picture of the shepherd gathering or
nursing a lost or ailing lamb, we see that in the last analysis the
shepherds are exclusively concerned. with the good of the owners
and of the shepherds (343b). But—and here Thrasymachus’ tri-
umph seems to turn into his final defeat—there is obviously a differ-
ence between the owners and the shepherds: the juiciest lamb chops
are for the owner and not for the shepherd, unless the shepherd is
dishonest. Now, the position of Thrasymachus or of any man of his
kind with regard to both rulers and ruled is precisely that of the
shepherd with regard to both the owner and the sheep: Thrasy-
machus can derive benefit from his art, from the assistance which
he gives to the rulers (regardless of whether they are tyrants, the
common people, or the men of excellence), only if he is loyal to
them, if he does his job for them well, if he keeps his part of the
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THE CITY AND MAN
bargain, if he is just. Contrary to his assertion he is compelled to
grant that a man’s justice is salutary, not only to others, and espe-
cially to the rulers, but also to himself. What is true of the helpers
of rulers is true of the rulers themselves and all other human beings
(including tyrants and gangsters) who need the help of other men
in their enterprises however unjust: no association can last if it does
not practice justice among its members (351c7-d3). This however
amounts to an admission that justice may be a mere means, if an
indispensable means, for injustice: for the shearing and eating of
the sheep. Justice consists in helping one’s friends and harming one’s
enemies. The common good of the city is not fundamentally differ-
ent from the common good of a gang of robbers. The art of arts
is not the art of money-making but the art of war. As for Thrasy-
machus’ art, he himself cannot think of it as the art of arts or of
himself as the ruler tyrannical or non-tyrannical (344c7-8). Yet this
rehabilitation of Polemarchus’ view proves to have been achieved
on the Thrasymachean ground: the common good is derived from
the private good via calculation. Not Thrasymachus’ principle but
his reasoning has proved to be defective.
In replying to Thrasymachus’ argument which is based on the
example of the art of the shepherd, Socrates again has recourse to
the notion of “art in the strict sense.” He is now silent about the
infallibility of art but speaks more emphatically than before (341d5)
of the fact that the arts proper become beneficial to the artisan only
through his practicing the art of money-making which he now calls
the wage-earning or mercenary art. Denying Thrasymachus’ asser-
tion that the rulers like to rule, he asserts that if Thrasymachus were
tight, the rulers would not demand, as they do, wages for ruling,
for the ruling of men means service to them, i.e. concerning oneself
with other men’s good and every sensible man would prefer being
benefited by others to benefiting others and thus being inconven-
ienced (346e9, 347d2-8). Hitherto it seemed that Socrates, the
friend of justice, was in favor of sacrificing the private good, includ-
ing one’s mere convenience, to the common good. Now it seems
that he adopts Thrasymachus’ principle: no one likes to serve or
help others or to act justly unless it is made profitable to him; the
_ wise man seeks only his own good, not the other man’s good; justice
in itself is bad. Let us remind ourselves here of the fact that
Socrates had never said that justice consists in helping everyone |
regardless of whether he is one’s friend or one’s enemy or whether
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
he is good or bad. The difference between Thrasymachus and
Socrates is then merely this: according to Thrasymachus, justice is
an unnecessary evil whereas according to Socrates it is a necessary
evil. This terrible result is by no means sufficiently counteracted by
the exchange between Socrates and Glaucon which takes place at
this point. As a matter of fact, what Socrates says to Glaucon
suggests this result as much as it contradicts it. It is therefore
necessary for Socrates to prove immediately afterward that justice
is good. He proves this in three arguments addressed to Thrasy-
machus. The arguments are far from conclusive. They are defective on
account of the procedure followed, a procedure proposed by Socra-
tes, approved by Glaucon and imposed on Thrasymachus. It demands
that instead of “counting and measuring” they should argue on the
basis of premises on which they agree, and in particular of the
premise that if something is similar to X, it is X (348a7—b7; 350c7-8,
d4-5; 476c6-7), to say nothing of the fact that Socrates’ refutation
of Thrasymachus’ assertion that no one likes to rule leaves some-
thing to be desired (347b8-e2). The only argument of a different
kind, of not so “simple” a kind (35la6-7) is the central one which
establishes that no society however unjust can last if it does not
practice justice among its members. When Socrates has completed
the proof of the goodness of justice, he frankly states that the proof
is radically inadequate: he has proved that justice is good without
knowing what justice is. Superficially this means that the three
views of justice proposed successively by Cephalus, Polemarchus,
and Thrasymachus have been refuted and no other view has been
tested or even stated. Yet through the refutation of the three views
and the reflection about them it has become clear, not perhaps
what justice is but what the problem of justice is. Justice has proved
to be the art which on the one hand assigns to every citizen what is
good for his soul and which on the other hand determines the
common good of the city. Hence Socrates’ attempt to prove that
justice is good without having previously settled what justice is, is
not absurd, for it has been settled that justice is one of the two
things mentioned. There would be no difficulty if one could be
certain that the common good were identical or at least in harmony
with the good of all individuals. It is because we cannot yet be
certain of this harmony that we cannot yet say with definiteness
that justice is good. It is the tension within justice which gives rise
to the question of whether justice is good or bad—of whether the
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THE CITY AND MAN
primary consideration is the common good or the individual’s own
good.
When Thrasymachus begins to speak, he behaves according to
Socrates’ lively description like a raving beast; by the end of the
first book he has become completely tame. He has been tamed by
Socrates: the action of the first book consists in a marvelous victory
of Socrates. As we have seen, that action is also a disgraceful defeat
of Socrates as the defender of justice. It almost goes without saying
that Thrasymachus has in no way become convinced by Socrates
of the goodness of justice. This goes far toward explaining Thrasy-
machus’ taming: while his reasoning proves to be poor, his principle
remains victorious. He must have found no small comfort in the
observation that Socrates’ reasoning was on the whole not superior
to his, although he must have been impressed both by the cleverness
with which Socrates argued badly on purpose and the superior
frankness with which he admitted at the end the weakness of his
proof. Yet all this implies that Socrates has succeeded perfectly in
establishing his ascendancy over Thrasymachus; from now on
Thrasymachus will not only no longer try to teach—he will not
even be a speaker any more. On the other hand he shows by the
fact that he stays on for many hours unrelieved by sights, food or
drink, to say nothing of satisfactions of his vanity (344d1), that he
has become a willing listener, a subordinate of Socrates. From the
beginning he regarded his art as ministerial to rulers and hence he
regarded himself as ministerial. His art consists in gratifying rulers
and especially ruling multitudes. His opening statements in which
he imitated the city revealed him as a man willing and able to
gratify the city. He gradually came to see that by gratifying the
political multitude he would not gratify the multitude assembled
in Polemarchus’ house. At least the vocal majority of the latter
multitude is clearly on Socrates’ side.?* While Thrasymachus is more
outspoken and less easily restrained than Polus in the Gorgias, he
is less daring, less outspoken than Callicles, and this is surely
connected with the fact that he is not an Athenian citizen.”* From
a certain moment on he shows a curious hesitation to become
identified with the thesis which he propounds. Given this restraint,
*337d10, 345a1-2. Cf. 350e6; 351c6, d7; 352b4; 354a10-11 with Gor-
gias 462d5.
* Cf. 848e5-349a2 with Gorgias 474c4~d2, 482d7-e5, and 487a7-bl.
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
the discussion between him and Socrates is in a sense a joke
(349a6-b1 ). We may say that in the conversation between Socrates
and Thrasymachus, justice is treated in a bantering and hence
unjust manner. This is not altogether surprising since Thrasyma-
chus, in contradistinction to the characters in the Euthyphro and
the Laches for instance, does not take seriously the virtue under
discussion; he does take seriously his art. In all these matters we
must never forget the rhetoric used by Socrates in his description
of Thrasymachus; it is very easy to read his discussion with Thrasy-
machus in the light of that description. The powerful effect of that
description illustrates beautifully the virtues of the narrated dialogue.
What Socrates does in the Thrasymachus section would be
inexcusable if he had not done it in order to provoke the passionate
reaction of Glaucon, a reaction which he presents as entirely un-
expected. According to his presentation Glaucon, who was respon-
«ble for Socrates’ staying in the Piraeus (not to say for his descend-
ing to the Piraeus), is responsible also for the bulk of the Republic,
for the elaboration of the best city. With Glaucon’s entry, which is
is lepeciately followed by the entry of his brother Adeimantus, the
¥.the sion changes its character profoundly. It becomes altogether
Atheuxian. In contradistinction to the three non-Athenians with
whom Socrates conversed in the first book, Glaucon and Adeimantus
are not tainted by the slightest defect of manners. They fulfill to a
considerable degree the conditions stated by Aristotle in his Ethics
which participants in discussions of noble things must fulfill. They
belong by nature to a nobler polity than the characters of the first
book, who belong respectively to oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny.
They belong at the very least to timocracy, the regime dedicated
to honor. Being an intelligent lover of justice, Glaucon is thoroughly
displeased with Socrates’ sham refutation of Thrasymachus’ assertion
that injustice is preferable to justice or that justice taken by itself is
an evil, if a necessary evil: Socrates had merely charmed Thrasy-
machus. Being courageous and high-minded, loathing the very
suggestion of a calculated and calculating justice, he wishes to hear
Socrates praise justice as choiceworthy for its own sake without any
regard to its consequences or purposes. Thus while Socrates is re-
sponsible for the fact that justice is the theme of the conversation,
Glaucon is responsible for the manner in which it is treated. In
order to hear a solid praise of justice itself, he presents a solid
blame of it, a blame which could serve as the model for the praise.
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THE CITY AND MAN
It is obvious that he is dissatisfied not only with Socrates’ refutation
of Thrasymachus but with Thrasymachus’ statement of the case for
injustice as well. He would not have been able to surpass Thrasy-
machus if he were not thoroughly familiar with the view pro-
pounded by Thrasymachus; that view is not peculiar to Thrasyma-
chus but held by “the many,” by “ten thousand others.” Glaucon
believes in justice; this authorizes him as it were to attack justice
in the most vigorous manner. For an unjust man would not attack
justice; he would prefer that the others remain the dupes of the
belief in justice so that they might become his dupes. A just man
on the other hand would never attack justice unless to provoke the
praise of justice. Glaucon’s dissatisfaction with Thrasymachus’ attack
on justice is justified. Thrasymachus had started from the law and
the city as already established: he had taken them for granted. He
had remained within the limits of “opinion.” He had not gone back
to “nature.” This was due to his concern with his art and hence with
art as such. When developing Thrasymachus’ notion of “art strictly
understood,” Socrates speaks with Thrasymachus’ entire approval of
the self-sufficiency of art, of every art, as contrasted with the jnot
of self-sufficiency of the things with which art is concerned; he dhi- -
trasts the goodness of the art of medicine e.g. with the badness of
the human body; he also says that the art of medicine is related to
the human body as sight is to the eyes. Elaborating a Thrasymachean
suggestion, Socrates almost contrasts the goodness of art with the
badness of nature. (Cf. 341c4-342d7 with 373d1-2, 405aff. and
Protagoras 321c~e.) Glaucon on the other hand in praising injustice
goes back to nature as good. But how does he know what injustice
and hence justice is? He assumes that he can answer the question
of what justice is by answering the question of how justice came
into being: the What or the nature of justice is identical with its
coming-into-being. Yet the origin of justice proves to be the good-
ness of doing injustice and the badness of suffering injustice. One
can overcome this difficulty by saying that by nature everyone is
concerned only with his own good and wholly unconcerned with
anyone else’s good to the point that he has no hesitation whatever
to harm his fellows in any way conducive to his own good. Since
all men act according to nature, they all bring about a situation
which is unbearable for most of them; the majority, ic. the
weaklings, figure out that every one of them would be better off if
they agreed among themselves not to harm one another. Thus they
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
began to lay down laws; thus justice arose. Yet what is true of the
majority of men is not true of him who is “truly a man” who can
take care of himself and who is better off if he does not submit to
law or convention. But even the others do violence to their nature
by submitting to law and injustice; they submit only from fear of
the evil consequences of injustice, of consequences which presup-
pose the detection of injustice. Hence the perfectly unjust man
whose injustice remains completely concealed, who is therefore
reputed to be perfectly just, leads the*happiest life, whereas the
perfectly just man whose justice remains completely unknown, who
has the reputation of being completely unjust, leads the most miser-
able life. (This implies that Thrasymachus is not a completely
unjust man.) Therefore since, as Glaucon hopes, justice is choice-
worthy for its own sake, he demands from Socrates in effect that
he show that the life of the just man who lives and dies in the
utmost misery and infamy is better than the life of the unjust man
who lives and dies in abounding happiness and glory.
Glaucon agrees then with Thrasymachus in holding that justice
is legality. But he makes this view more precise: justice is respect
of the legally established equality which supersedes the contradic-
tory natura] inequality. Accordingly he denies that justice is the
advantage of the stronger; according to him, justice is the advantage
of the weaker.?? When asserting that justice is the advantage of the
stronger, Thrasymachus did not think of the naturally stronger (he
is not concerned with nature but with art) but of the factually
stronger, and, as he knew, the many who are by nature weak, may
by banding together become stronger than those by nature strong
(Gorgias 488c-e). We may therefore say that Thrasymachus’ view
is truer, more sober, more pedestrian than Glaucon’s view. The same
holds true of the most important difference between Glaucon and
Thrasymachus. Glaucon denies that anyone is genuinely just, whereas
Thrasymachus does not have the slightest doubt that there are many
just men whom he despises indeed as simpletons. Glaucon is con-
cerned with genuine justice, whereas Thrasymachus is satisfied with
overt behavior. Glaucon looks into the hearts, and if someone would
say that one cannot look into all men’s hearts, we shall limit our-
selves te saying that Glaucon has looked into his own heart and has
found there injustice struggling manfully with his good breeding
* 347d8-e2; cf. Adeimantus’ agreement with Thrasymachus (367c2-5).
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THE CITY AND MAN
(cf. 619b7-d1). He looks for a man who is truly just. In order to
see him or rather in order to show that no one is truly just, he is
compelled to make use of fiction based on myth (359d5-8); he has
to assume that the impossible is possible. In order to understand
the relation between the genuinely and purely just man and the
genuinely and purely unjust man, he is compelled to become an
“imitative” artisan (361d4-6), who presents as possible what is by
nature impossible. All this is necessary in order to give Socrates a
model for his praise of justice as choiceworthy for its own sake.
From this we understand Glaucon’s most radical deviation from
Thrasymachus. In the discussion with Thrasymachus the issue had
become blurred to some extent by the suggestion that there is a
kinship between justice and art. Glaucon makes the issue manifest
by comparing the perfectly unjust man to the perfect artisan who
distinguishes clearly between what is possible and what is impos-
sible for his art, whereas he considers the perfectly just man as a
simple man who has no quality other than justice: he goes so far as
to use some Aeschylean verses in which the just and pious man is
described as shrewd and as having a fertile mind for describing the
perfectly unjust man.”* Perhaps he thought that his restatement
makes the thought more conformable to the spirit of the Marathon
fighter Aeschylus. Glaucon’s perfectly just man is divorced from art
and from nature: he is altogether a piece of fiction.
The view which Glaucon maintains in common with Thrasyma-
chus implies that there is an insoluble conflict between the good of
the individual and the common good. Hobbes, starting from a
similar premise, reached the opposite conclusion because he denied
that any good which any individual can possibly enjoy is as great
as the evil which threatens him in the absence of society, peace, or
the common good. Glaucon in contradistinction to Thrasymachus
points to this consideration (358e4-5) but he also refers to the
fundamental difference, denied by Hobbes, between the many who
are by nature weak, and the few who are by nature strong. Glaucon
thus rejoins Thrasymachus in holding that the good life is the tyran-
nical life, the exploitation, more or less concealed, of society or con-
vention for one’s own benefit alone, i.e. for the only natural good.
* 360e7-36lal; 361b2-6, ¢8; 362a8—-b1, b7~8; Aeschylus, Seven Against
Thebes 530-610.
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The refutation of this Unjust Speech which Hobbes attempted** on
the basis of natural equality was attempted by Socrates on the basis
of natural inequality: precisely natural inequality properly under-
stood supplies the refutation of the tyrannical life. Hobbes however
cannot consistently maintain the distinction between the tyrant and
the king. As for the view which Glaucon implicitly opposes to
Thrasymachus’ view, it cannot but remind us of Kant’s view—of
Kant’s moving description of the simple man who has no quality
other than the good will, the only thing of absolute worth. The
opening statement of his Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals
makes it clear that morality as he understands it is more akin to
justice than to any other virtue. Morality as Kant understands it is
as much divorced from art and nature as justice is according to
Glaucon: the moral laws are not natural laws nor technical rules.
The fate of Glaucon’s view in the Republic foreshadows the fate of
Kant’s moral philosophy. What Glaucon intends is however better
indicated by “honor” than by “the good will.” When the signers of
the Declaration of Independence say: “we mutually pledge to each
other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor,” they mean
that they are resolved to forsake their lives and fortunes, but to
maintain their honor: honor shines most clearly when everything
else is sacrificed for its sake, including life, the matter of the first
natural right mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. While
honor or justice presupposes life and both are meant to serve life,
they are nevertheless higher in rank than life.?° It is this seeming
paradox to which Glaucon draws our attention in his description of
the perfectly just man. Within the Republic this thought is prepared
by the notion of “art in the strict sense,” i.e. by the divorce of art
from the advantage of the artisan and the implied depreciation
of nature.
Glaucon’s demand on Socrates is strongly supported by his
brother Adeimantus. It becomes clear from Adeimantus’ speech
that Glaucon’s view according to which justice must be choice-
worthy entirely for its own sake is altogether novel: the decay of
justice is as old as the human race. Glaucon’s blame of justice
had insensibly shifted into a praise of justice. Adeimantus finds that
* Leviathan ch. 15 (p. 94 Blackwell’s Political Texts ed.).
* Cicero, De Finibus WI 20-22.
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THE CITY AND MAN
Glaucon had omitted the most important point. Adeimantus’ speech
is less a blame of justice than a blame of the common, nay, uni-
versal praise of justice by which justice is praised with exclusive
regard to its consequences and hence as intrinsically bad. In Adei-
mantus’ opinion Glaucon had not sufficiently stressed the recourse
to the gods in the common praise, and especially in the poets’ praise,
of justice: justice is good because it is rewarded by the gods and
injustice is bad because it is punished by them. Adeimantus de-
mands then that the genuine praise of justice exclude divine punish-
ment and reward; the genuine praise of justice surely requires the
banishment of the poets. There is yet another kind of speech about
justice and injustice which is also proffered both privately and by
the poets. Moderation and justice are universally praised as indeed
noble but hard and toilsome, i.e. as noble by convention and un-
pleasant and hence bad by nature. Adeimantus demands then that
the genuine praise of justice present justice as intrinsically pleasant
and easy (364a2-4, c6—d3; cf. 357b5-8 and 358a). Yet the strangest
ones of the second kind of speech are those which say that the gods
send misery to many good men and felicity to many bad ones, i.e.
that the gods are responsible for the toilsome character of justice
and the easy character of injustice. Adeimantus demands then that
the genuine praise of justice exclude not cnly divine punishments
and rewards but any divine action on men; and if it should prove
hard to assert that the gods do not act on men while being aware:
of men, that the genuine praise of justice exclude divine knowledge
of human things. At any rate, the hitherto universal praise of justice
supplies the strongest incentive to injustice if injustice disguises
itself successfully as justice. Such injustice is not an easy thing; it is
in its way as difficult as justice is according to the old view; it is not
possible without art, the art of rhetoric; but it is the only way
toward felicity (cf. 365c7-d6 with 364a2-4). Precisely on the basis -
of the still universally or almost universally held beliefs, the argu-
ment for injustice is so powerful that only two kinds of men are
voluntarily just: those who, thanks to a divine nature, feel disgust
at acting unjustly and those who, having acquired knowledge,
abstain from acting unjustly; neither of these two kinds of men
will be angry at the unjust, although the former feel disgust at the
thought that they themselves could act unjustly (366c3-d3).
The speeches of the two brothers are in character. Glaucon is
characterized by manliness and impetuosity rather than by modera-
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
tion and quietness and the opposite is true of Adeimantus (“the
fearless one”). Accordingly Glaucon sees the splendor of justice in
its toilsomeness whereas Adeimantus sees it rather in its pleasantness
and ease and in its freedom from anger. Glaucon’s just man is
purely just—he has no quality other than justice and in particular
no art; he does not even remotely remind of the philosopher. Adei-
mantus’ just man on the other hand may be a man of knowledge.
Adeimantus is more sober than Glaucon. Glaucon’s speeck: makes
use of poetry; Adeimantus’ speech is so to speak nothing but an
indictment of poetry. In order to discover what justice is, Socrates
will have to weave together the courageous and the moderate, the
suggestions peculiar to Glaucon and the suggestions peculiar to
Adeimantus. He is able to do this to the extent to which the differ-
ence between the two brothers is less great than their agreement.
They agree in their demand on Socrates that he praise justice as
choiceworthy for its own sake, or pleasant, or even by itself suffi-
cient to make a man perfectly happy in the midst of what is
ordinarily believed to be the most extreme misery. In making this
demand they establish the standard by which we must judge
Socrates’ praise of justice; they thus force us to investigate whether
or to what extent Socrates has proved in the Republic that justice
has the characteristics mentioned.
Socrates declares himself to be unable to defend justice against
the two brothers’ attack (368b4-7, 362d7-9) but he undoubtedly
replies to it at very great length. The very least he will have to do is
to show why he cannot comply fully with Glaucon’s demand. In
order to understand his procedure, we must remind ourselves again
of the result of the first book. Justice came to sight as the art of
assigning to each what is good for his soul and as the art of dis-
cerning and procuring the common good. Justice thus understood is
not found in any city; it therefore becomes necessary to found a city
‘in which justice as defined can be practiced. The difficulty is
whether assigning to each what is good for him is the same as, or at
least compatible with, procuring the common good. The difficulty
would disappear if the common good were identical with the
private good of each, and this would be possible if there were no
essential difference, but only a quantitive difference, between the
city and the individual, or if there were a strict parallel between
the city and the individual. Assuming such a parallel Socrates turns
first to investigating justice in the city and more particularly to the
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THE CITY AND MAN
coming-into-being of the city which is accompanied by the coming-
into-being of the city’s justice and injustice, i.e. to the coming-into-
being of the city out of the pre-political individuals. This procedure
may be said to have been imposed on him by Glaucon. Glaucon had
identified the What or the essence of justice with its coming-into-
being; justice appeared to be preceded by contract and law, and
hence by the city, which in its tur appeared to be preceded by
individuals each of whom was concemed exclusively with his own
advantage. That Socrates too should start from the individual con-
cermed exclusively with his own good, is intelligible also directly on
the basis of the result of the first book.
Nevertheless one cannot help wondering why Socrates is at all
concerned with the coming-into-being of justice or why he does not
limit himself to grasping the What, the essence, the idea of justice;
for surely Socrates, in contradistinction to Glaucon, was incapable
of identifying the What of a thing with its coming-into-being. By
looking at the idea of justice which is of course the same regardless
of whether an individual or a city participates in it, just as the idea
of the equal is the same regardless of whether two pebbles or two
mountains are equal, he could have avoided many difficulties. When
investigating any of the other virtues in the other dialogues, he does
not even dream of investigating the coming-into-being of beings
which participate in these virtues. Socrates starts from “justice in
the city” instead of from “justice in the individual” because the
former is written in larger letters than the latter. But since the city
possesses courage, moderation, and wisdom as well, he should have
started his investigations of these virtues in the dialogues devoted
to them also by considering these virtues as virtues of the city.
Could this be the reason why the investigations of the Euthyphro,
the Laches, the Charmides, and so on do not lead to a positive re-
sult? Socrates’ procedure in the Republic can perhaps be explained
as follows: there is a particularly close connection between justice
and the city and while there is surely an idea of justice, there is
perhaps no idea of the city. For there are not ideas of “everything.”
The eternal and unchangeable ideas are distinguished from the
particular things which come into being and perish, and which are
what they are by virtue of their participating in the idea in ques-
tion; the particular things contain then something which cannot be
traced to the ideas, which accounts for their belonging to the sphere
of becoming as distinguished from being and in particular why they
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
participate in ideas as distinguished from being ideas. Perhaps the
city belongs so radically to the sphere of becoming that there can-
not be an idea of the city. Aristotle says that Plato recognized ideas
only of natural beings.** Perhaps Plato did not regard the city as a
natural being. Yet if there is a strict parallel between the city and
the human individual, the city would seem to be a natural being.
Surely by asserting that parallel, Socrates contradicts Glaucon’s
thesis which may be said to be to the effect thai the city is against
nature. On the other hand, by putting such an emphasis on the
coming-into-being of the city, Socrates compels us to raise the ques-
tion which we have raised.
The city does not come into being like a natural being; it is
founded by Socrates together with Glaucon and Adeimantus (369a5—
6, c9-10). But in contradistinction to all other known cities it will
be according to nature. Prior to their turning to the founding of
the city Glaucon and Adeimantus had taken the side of injustice. At
the moment they begin to act as founders they take the side of
justice. This radical change, this transformation, is not due to any
seduction or charm practiced by Socrates, nor does it constitute a
genuine conversion. Taking the side of injustice means praising and
choosing the tyrannical life, being a tyrant, being dedicated to
nothing but one’s greatest power and honor. But the honor of a
tyrant who exploits a city which is the work of others is petty
compared with the honor of the man who founds a city, who, for
the sake of his glory alone, must be concerned with founding the
most perfect city or must dedicate himself entirely to the service of
the city. The “logic” of injustice leads from the small-time criminal
via the tyrant to the immortal founder. Glaucon and Adeimantus
cooperating with Socrates in founding the best city remind one of
the young tyrant mentioned in the Laws (709e6-710b3; cf. Repub-
lic 487a) who does not possess justice and cooperates with the
wise legislator. .
The founding of the good city takes place in three stages: the
founding of the healthy city called the city of pigs, the founding of
the purified city or the city of the armed camp, and the founding
of the City of Beauty or the city ruled by the philosophers.
The city has its origin in human needs: every human being, just
or unjust, is in need of many things and is at least for this reason
™ Metaphysics 991b6-7, 1070a18-20.
°
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THE CITY AND MAN
in need of other human beings. By starting from the self-interest of
each we arrive at the necessity of the city and therewith of the
common good for the sake of each man’s own good (369c7, 370a3-
4). By identifying to some extent the question of justice with the
question of the city and by tracing the city to man’s needs, Socrates
indicates that it is impossible to praise justice without regard to the
function or consequence of justice. The fundamental phenomenon
is not, as Glaucon had asserted, the desire to have more than others
but the desire for the necessities of life; the desire to have more is
secondary. The healthy city satisfies properly the primary needs, the
needs of the body. This proper satisfaction requires that everyone
work for his living in such a way that he exercises only one art. This
is in accordance with nature: men differ from one another by nature
or different men are gifted for different ends, and the nature of the
work to be done requires this “specialization.” When everyone dedi-
cates himself to a single art, Glaucon’s and Adeimantus’ conflicting
views of the just man are reconciled: the just man is simple and the
just man is a man of knowledge (397e). As a consequence everyone
does almost all his work for others but also the others work for him.
All will exchange with one another their products as their products:
there will be private property; by working for the advantage of
others everyone will work for his own advantage. Since everyone
will exercise the art for which he is best fitted by nature, the burden
will be easier on everyone. The healthy city is a happy city; it knows
no poverty, no coercion or government, no war, and no eating of
animals. It is happy in such a way that every member of it is
happy: it does not need government because there is perfect har-
mony between everyone's service and his reward; no one encroaches
on anyone else. It does not need government because everyone
chooses by himself the art for which he is best fitted: everyone
takes to his particular trade as a duck takes to water; there is per-
fect harmony between natural gifts and preferences. There is also
perfect harmony between what is good for the individual (his choos-
ing the art for which he is best fitted by nature) and what is good
for the city: nature has so arranged things that there is no surplus of
blacksmiths or deficit of shoemakers. The healthy city is happy be-
cause it is just and it is just because it is happy. It is just without
anyone concerning himself with justice; it is just by nature. The
healthy city is altogether natural; it is little in need of medicine be-
cause in the healthy city the bodies are not as bad as they were
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supposed to be in the conversation with Thrasymachus (34le4-6,
373d1-3). In the healthy city justice is. free from any tincture of self-
sacrifice: justice is easy and pleasant. Justice is easy and pleasant
because no one has to concern himself with the common good and
to dedicate himself to it; the only action which could look like con-
cern with the common good, the restriction of the number of children
(372b8-c1), will be effected by everyone thinking of his own good: The
healthy city complies with the demand of Adeimantus. It com-
plies to some extent with Adeimantus’ character.*? It is Adeimantus’
city. But it is wholly unacceptable to his brother. It does not satisfy
Glaucon’s need for luxury, and in the first place for meat. (He did
not get the promised dinner.) But we could greatly underestimate
him if we were to believe him. He does not lie of course, but he is
not fully aware of what induces him to rebel against the healthy
city. The healthy city may be just in a sense but it surely lacks
virtue or excellence (cf. 372b7-8 with 607a4): such justice as it
possesses is not virtue. Glaucon is characterized by the fact that he
cannot distinguish between his desire for dinner and his desire for
virtue. (He is the one who calls the healthy city the city of pigs.
In this respect too he does not quite know what he says. The
healthy city is literally a city without pigs. Cf 370d-e and 372c.)
Virtue is impossible without toil, effort or repression of the evil in
oneself. In the healthy city evil is only dormant. Death is mentioned
only when the transition from the healthy city to the next stage has
already begun (372d). Because virtue is impossible in the healthy
city, the healthy city is impossible. The healthy city or any other
form of anarchic society would be possible if men could remain
innocent; but it is of the essence of innocence that it is easily lost;
men can be just only through knowledge. “Self-realization” is not
essentially in harmony with sociability.
Socrates calls the healthy city the true city or simply the city
(372e6-7, 374a5, 433a2-6): It is the city par excellence for more
than one reason, one reason being that it exhibits the fundamental
character of the best city. Whén Socrates speaks about the primary
needs which bring men together, he mentions food, housing, and
clothing but is silent about procreation. He speaks only of those
natural needs which are satisfied by means of arts as distinguished
* Consider Adeimantus’ most lengthy reply in this context (871¢5-d3: the
need for shopkeepers) with Socrates’ reply (e5-G: “as I believe”).
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from that natural need which is satisfied naturally. He abstracts
from procreation in order to be able to understand the city as an
association of artisans or in order to effect as complete a coinci-
dence as possible between the city and the arts. The city and the
arts belong together. Socrates seems to agree with the Bible in so
far as the Bible traces the city as well as the arts to one and the
same, origin.*? At any rate, we are forced to reconsider the natural
character of the healthy city. The care for men which the descrip-
tion of the healthy city ascribes to nature goes much beyond what
nature ever provides. It could be ascribed only to the gods. No
wonder that the citizens of the healthy city sing hymns to the gods.
All the more remarkable is the silence of Socrates and Adeimantus
about the gods’ efficacy in the healthy city.
Before the purified city can emerge or rather be established, the
healthy city must have decayed. Its decay is brought about by the
emancipation of the desire for unnecessary things, ie. for things
which are not necessary for the well-being of the body. Thus the
luxurious or feverish city emerges, the city characterized by striving
for unlimited acquisition of wealth. One can expect that in such a
city the individuals will no longer exercise the single art for which
each is fitted by nature, but any art, genuine or spurious, or com-
bination of arts which is most lucrative or that there will no longer
be a strict correspondence between service and reward; hence there
will be dissatisfaction and conflicts and therefore need for govern-
ment which will restore justice; hence there will be need for some-
thing else which was also entirely absent from the healthy city, i.e.
the education at least of the rulers and more particularly education
to justice. Justice will no longer be effective naturally. This is re-
flected in the conversation: whereas in the description of the healthy
city Socrates and his interlocutors were onlookers of the coming-
into-being of the city, they must now become founders, men respon-
sible for the effectiveness of justice (cf. 374e6-9 with 369c9-10;
378e7-379a1). There will also be need for additional territory and
hence there will be war, war of aggression. Building on the prin-
ciple “one man one art,” Socrates demands that the army consist of
men who have no other art than the art of war. It appears that the
art of the warrior or guardian is by far superior to the other arts.
Hitherto it looked as if all arts were of equal rank and the only
™ Cf. also Sophocles, Antigone 332ff. with 786f.
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
universal art or the only art accompanying all arts was the art of
money-making (342a~c, 346c). Now we receive the first glimpse of
the true order of arts: that order is hierarchic; the universal art is
the highest art, the art directing all other arts which as such cannot
be practiced by the practitioners of arts other than the highest; in
particular, it cannot be practiced by anyone practicing the money-
making art. The art of arts will prove to be philosophy. For the
time being we are merely told that the warrior must have a nature
resembling the nature of that philosophic beast, the dog. For the
warriors must be spirited and hence irascible and harsh on the one
hand and gentle on the other, since they must possess disinterested
dislike for foreigners and disinterested liking for their fellow citizens.
The men possessing such special natures need in addition a special
education. With a view to their work they need training in the art
of war, of guarding the city. But this is not the education with
which Socrates is much concerned. We recall that the art of the
keeper proved to be identical with the art of the thief. The educa-
tion of the guardians must make sure that they will not practice
thievery and the like except perhaps against a foreign enemy. The
warriors will be by nature the best fighters and in addition they
will be the only ones armed and trained in arms: they will inevi-
tably be the sole possessors of political power. Besides, the age of
innocence having gone, evil will be rampant in the city and there-
fore also in the warriors. The education which the warriors more
than anyone else need is therefore education in civic virtue. This is
again reflected in the conversation. The one who rebelled against
the healthy city was Glaucon; his rebellion was prompted by his
desire for luxury, for “having more,” for the thrills of war and de-
struction (cf. 471b6-cl ). He is now compelled by Socrates to accept
the complete divorce of the profession of arms from all luxury and
gain (374a3): the spirit of luxury and gain‘is replaced by the spirit
of discipline and selfiess service. Glaucon’s education in this respect
is part of the education to moderation which is effected by the
conversation reported in the Republic as a whole.
The education of the warriors in civic virtue is “music” educa-
tion, education through poetry and music. Not all poetry and music
is apt to make men good citizens in general and good warriors in
particular. Therefore the poetry and music not conducive to. the
acquisition of the virtues in question must be banished from the city.
The specific pleasure which poetry affords can be tolerated only
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THE CITY AND MAN
when it is conducive to the noble, to nobility of character. The
austerity of this demand is entirely agreeable to Adeimantus who
is now again Socrates’ interlocutor. Socrates himself regards that
demand as provisional; the whole discussion partakes of the char-
acter of myth." The first place is occupied by education to piety.
Piety requires that only the right kind of stories about the gods be
told, not the kind told by the greatest poets. To indicate the right
kind Socrates lays down two laws regarding what Adeimantus calls
“theology.” For the proper understanding of that theology one must
consider the context. The theology is to serve as model for the un-
true stories to be told to little children (377c7-d1 and a). As we
know, untrue stories are needed not only for little children but also
for the grown-up citizens of the good city, but it is probably best
if they are imbued with these stories from the earliest possible
moment. There was no need for untrue stories in the city of pigs.
This may have been one reason why Socrates called it “the true
city,” i.e. the truthful city. At any rate, the conversation between
Socrates and Adeimantus about the theology shifts insensibly from
the demand for noble lies about the gods to the demand for the truth
about the gods. The speakers start from the implicit premise that
there are gods, or that there is a god and that they know what a god
is. The difficulty can be illustrated by an example. Socrates asks
Adeimantus whether the god would lie or say the untruth because of
his ignorance of ancient things and Adeimantus replies that this
would be ridiculous (382d6-8). But why is it ridiculous in Adei-
mantus’ view? Because the gods must know best their own affairs,
as Timaeus suggests (Timaeus 40d3-41a5)? It is true that Timaeus
makes a distinction between the visible gods who revolve mani-
festly and those gods who manifest themselves so far as they choose,
between the cosmic gods and the Olympian gods, and that no such
distinction is made in the theology of the Republic where only the
Olympian gods are identified. But precisely this fact shows the
“mythical” character of the theology or the gravity of the failure to
raise and answer the question “what is a god?” or “who are the
gods?” Other Socratic utterances might enable one to ascertain Soc-
rates’ answer, but they are of no use for ascertaining Adeimantus’
answer and therewith for gauging how deep the agreement is which
Socrates and Adeimantus achieve. They surely agree as to this, that
“ 376d9, 387b8-4, 388e2—4, 38927, 390a5, 396c10, 397d6~e2, 3988.
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
the gods are superhuman beings, that they are of superhuman good-
ness or perfcction (38lcl]-3). That the god is good is even the
thesis of the first theological law. From this it follows that the god
is not the cause of all things but only of the good ones. This amounts
to saying that the god is just: the first theological law applies to the
god the result of the conversation with Polemarchus according to
which justice consists in helping the friends, i.e. sensible men and
in not harming anyone." The explicit difficulty concerns exclusively
the other theological law which asserts the simplicity of the god and
which is to some extent a mere corollary of the first. The second law
has two implications: (1) the god does not change his looks or form
(eidos or idea), ic. he does not take on a variety of shapes or
undergo changes of his form; (2) the gods do not deceive or lie. In
contradistinction to the first law, the second law is not immediately
evident to Adeimantus; this is true especially of the second impli-
cation (380a7, 38lel1, 382a3). Adeimantus obviously sees no diffi-
culty in maintaining simultaneously that the gods are good and that
they lie: the gods possess all virtues, hence also justice, and justice
sometimes requires lying; as Socrates makes clear partly in this con-
text and partly shortly afterwards,** rulers must lie for the benefit
of their subjects; if the gods are just or rulers, it would seem that
they must lie. Adeimantus’ resistance is then due to his concern with
justice as distinguished from love of truth (382a4-10) or philosophy.
He resists the dogma stating the simplicity of the gods because he
is more willing than his brother to grant that justice is akin to
knowledge or art rather than it is essentially simplicity. His resist-
ance is not altogether in harmony with the implications of his long
speech near the beginning of the second book.*’ This is not surpris-
ing: he still has much to learn. After all, he does not yet know what
justice is. Somewhat later in the conversation Socrates suggests that
justice is a specifically human virtue (392a3-c3), perhaps because
justice is rooted in the fact that every human being lacks self-
sufficiency and hence is ordered toward the city (369b5-7) and
therefore that man is essentially “erotic” whereas the gods are self-
‘* 382d11-e3, 378b2-3, 380b1. Polemarchus and Adeimantus appear to-
gether: 327cl; cf. 449b1-7.
*° 382c6ff., 3889b2-d6; cf. the conditional and partly metrical clause in
389b2—4.
" The core of the difficulty is indicated in 866c7 as one sees if one con-
siders the fact that the gods themselves must have divine natures.
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sufficient and hence free from eros. Eros and justice would thus
seem to have the same root.
The education of the warriors as envisaged by Socrates is educa-
tion to almost all virtues. Piety, courage, moderation, and justice are
clearly recognizable as goals of this education, whereas wisdom is
replaced by truthfulness and rejection of love of laughter. The dis-
cussion of how to educate the warriors to justice is postponed on
the ground that the interlocutors do not yet know what justice is.*®
This ground is rather specious, for they can hardly be said to know
what the other virtues are either. We see the true ground when we
pay attention to the fact that as the conversation turns to music
proper, the music and erotic Glaucon who makes his re-entry
laughingly again takes the place of his brother (398c7, el; 402e2).
Generally speaking, Glaucon is the interlocutor of Socrates in the
Republic whenever the highest themes are discussed. It is in a con-
versation with Glaucon that Socrates makes clear the ultimate end
of the education of the warriors. That ultimate end proves to be
eros of the beautiful or noble. That eros is linked especially to cour-
age and above all to moderation or seemliness.** Justice in the
narrow sense may be said to flow from moderation or from the
proper combination of moderation and courage. Socrates thus makes
silently clear the difference between the gang of robbers and the
good city: these kinds of society differ essentially because the armed
and ruling part of the good city is animated by the eros for every-
thing beautiful and graceful. The difference is not to be sought in
the fact that the good city is guided in its relations to other cities,
Greek or barbarian, by considerations of justice: the size of the
territory of the good city is determined by that city’s own moderate
needs and by nothing else (423a5-cl; cf. 422d1-7); the relation of
the city to the other cities belongs to the province of wisdom rather
than of justice (428d2-3); the good city is not a part of a community
of cities or is not dedicated to the common good of that community
or does not serve other cities. Therefore, if the parallel between the
city and the individual is to be preserved, one must at least try to
understand the virtues of the individual in terms of virtues other
than justice. It is in connection with this experiment that eros of the
™ CE. 395c4-5 and 427e10-11 with 386al~6; 388e5; 389b2, d7; 392a8—c5.
* 399c3, ell; 401a5-8; 402c2-4; 403c4-8; 410a8-9; e10; 411c4ff. (376e2-
10); 416d8-el. ;
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
beautiful provisionally takes the place of justice. One might say that
in this stage the situation in the good city is exactly the reverse of
' the situation in the healthy city.
While the parallel between the city and the individual is thus
surreptitiously established, it is surreptitiously brought into ques-
tion. In order to be as good as possible, the city must be united or
one as much as possible and therefore the individual must be one
‘as much as possible: every citizen must devote himself single-
mindedly to a single art (423d3-6). Justice is simplicity. Hence edu-
cation must be simple: the simple gymnastic and the simple music
is to be preferred to the composite, “sophisticated,” or complex
forms (404b5, 7, e4-5; 410a8-9). But man is a dual being, consist-
ing of body and soul: in order to become an educated warrior, one
must therefore practice the two arts (41le4) of gymnastic and
music.*? This dualism is illustrated by the radical difference dis-
cussed in this context between the physician, the healer of the body,
and the judge, the healer of the soul. It goes without saying that
music itself consists of two arts, poetry and music in the narrow
sense, to say nothing of the art of reading and writing (402b3). If
Asclepius’ sons combine the two heterogeneous arts of medicine and
war (408a1-2), one begins to wonder whether the strict separation
of the men devoting themselves to the art of war from all other
artisans (374a3-d6) is Socrates’ last word. Perhaps it is also not as
impossible as Socrates here suggests for the same man to be a good
comic poet and a good tragic poet, especially since we learn from
the context that the man of noble simplicity who for the sake of this
simplicity would never imitate a lower man, might nevertheless do
this in jest: the dualism of play and seriousness warns us against
too simple an understanding of simplicity. Such a simple under-
standing is however most simply prevented by the recollection of
the fact that the rulers of the best city must combine the two hetero-
geneous activities of the philosopher on the one hand and of the
king on the other.
The difference between justice and the eros of the beautiful
which is the end of the warriors’ education comes out in Socrates’
discussion of the rulers. The rulers must be taken from among the
elite of the warriors. In addition to possessing the art of guarding
“Cf. the different meaning of “unmixed” in 410d3 and 412a4 on the one
hand and in 897d2 (cf. el-2) on the other.
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THE CITY AND MAN
the citizens, the rulers must possess the quality of caring for the
city or of loving the city; this love (philia) is not eros. As we recall,
the art of guarding is in itself also the art of thieving. A man is most
likely to love that whose interest he believes to be identical with his
own interest or whose happiness he believes to be the condition of
his own happiness (412c5-d8). The love which is demanded of the
rulers is then neither spontaneous nor disinterested in the sense that
the good ruler would love the city without any regard to his own
interest; the love expected of him is a calculating kind of love. Jus-
tice as dedication to the common good is neither art nor eros; it
does not appear to be choiceworthy for its own sake. Caring for
one’s city is one thing; undergoing the hardships of ruling the city,
i.e. of serving the city, is another thing. This explains why Socrates
demands that the good rulers be honored both while they are alive
and after their death (414al-4; cf. 347d4-8). Yet this incentive can-
not affect the ruled. It is therefore with special regard to the ruled
and more precisely to the soldiers, the strongest part of the city,
that Socrates introduces at this point the noble lie par excellence;
that noble lie is to bring about the maximum of caring for the city
and for one another on the part of the ruled (415d3-4). The good
city is not possible then without a fundamental falsehood; it cannot
exist in the element of truth, of nature. The noble lie consists of two
parts. The first part is meant to make the citizens forget the truth
about their education or the true character of their becoming citi-
zens out of mere human beings or out of what one may call natural
human beings." It surely is meant to blur the distinction between
nature and art and between nature and convention. It demands that
the citizens regard themselves as children of one and the same
mother and nurse, the earth, and hence as brothers, but in such a
way that the earth is to be identified with a part of the earth, with
the particular land or territory belonging to the particular city in
question: the fraternity of all human beings is to be replaced by
the fraternity of all fellow citizens. The second part of the noble lie
qualifies this qualified fraternity by the fundamental inequality of
the brothers; while the fraternity is traced to the earth, the inequal-
ity is traced to the god. If the god is the cause of all good things
(380c8-9), inequality would seem to be a good thing. The god did
not however create the brothers unequal by arbitrary decision, as it
“ Consider Rousseau, Du Contrat Social 11 7 (“Du Législateur” ).
102
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
were choosing some for rule and others for subjection; he merely
sanctioned a natural difference or put a stamp on it. One might
expect that the god would at least guarantee what nature does not
guarantee, namely, that the rulers generate only rulers, the soldiers
only soldiers, and the farmers and craftsmen only farmers and crafts-
men; but the god limits himself to demanding that the ignoble sons
of noble fathers be relegated to a lower class and vice versa, i.e.
that the natural order be respected without mercy. The division of
the human race into independent self-sufficient cities is not simply
natural; the order of rank within the city would be simply natural
if it were divinely sanctioned with sufficient force. It is the second
part of the noble lie which, by adding divine sanctions to the nat-
ural hierarchy, supplies the required incentive for the soldiers to
obey the rulers and thus to serve the city wholeheartedly. Yet unless
one ascribes a weight not warranted by the text to the divine sanc-
tion mentioned, one must admit that the suggested incentive is not
sufficient. It is for this reason that Socrates introduces at this point
the institution of communism: the incentive to justice still being
insufficient, the opportunity for injustice must be removed. In the
extremely brief discussion of communism regarding property the
emphasis is on “housing”: there will be no hiding places. Everyone
is compelled always to live, if not in the open, at least within easy
inspection: everyone may enter everyone else’s dwelling at will. As
reward for their service to the craftsmen proper the soldiers will not
receive money of any kind but only a sufficient amount of food and
of the other necessities. In the city of the armed camp there does
not exist that approximation to the ring of Gyges which is the
private home: no one can be happy through injustice because in-
justice, in order to be successful, requires a secrecy which is no
longer possible.
In the good city as hitherto described justice then still depends
on the lack of opportunity for injustice, as it does necessarily ac-
cording to Glaucon’s charge in his long speech; we have not yet
come face to face with genuine justice. Hence, according to
Glaucon’s hope, we have not yet come face to face with genuine
happiness. In other words, the coincidence of self-interest and the
interest of the others or of the city, which was lost with the decay
of the healthy city, has not yet been restored at least as far as the
soldiers are concerned. The common people are the sheep, the sol-. -
dicrs are the dogs, and the rulers are the shepherds (416a2-7). But”
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THE CITY AND MAN
who are the owners? Who benefits from the whole enterprise? Who
is made happy by it? No wonder that at the beginning of the fourth
book the quiet and somewhat pedestrian Adeimantus, who is en-
tirely oblivious of the joys of war and does not discern any peaceful
activity of the soldiers which would be choiceworthy for its own
sake, lodges an accusation against Socrates on behalf of the soldiers,
the true owners of the city (419224). Socrates defends himself as
follows: we are concerned with the happiness of the city rather than
with the happiness of any one section of it; we gave to each section
that degree of happiness which is compatible with its specific serv-
ice to the city or with its justice; we gave to each section of the
city that degree of happiness which that section’s. nature requires or
permits. But the section consists of individuals. It is not clear
whether it is sufficient for the individual’s happiness that the section
to which he belongs is as happy as its political function permits,
whether his happiness coincides with his complete dedication to the
happiness of the city or with his justice, or whether he can reach a
higher degree of happiness by being unjust. We must see whether
it has become clear by the time that they begin to answer the ques-
tion of whether genuine justice or genuine injustice is required for
happiness (427d5-7).
Just as Glaucon had opposed the healthy city because its citizens
lack the pleasures of the table, and not because they lack virtue,
Adeimantus opposes the city of the armed camp because its citizens
lack wealth, and not because they lack genuine justice. The incom-
pleteness of the argument is matched by the incompleteness of the
training of the interlocutors. The cure for the desire for the pleasures
of the table was found in moderation. The cure for the desire for
wealth must be found in justice. If the latter cure has been found by
the time that they begin to answer the question of whether genuine
justice is required for happiness, it was found much more easily
than the former cure. The reason would be that wealth is much
more political than the sensual pleasures: the city as city cannot eat
and drink whereas it can own property. After Socrates has com-
pleted his defense against Adeimantus’ charge, Adeimantus states
the case for wealth, not indeed of the individuals, but of the city
which needs wealth for waging war (422a4-7, b9, d8-e2). Through
refuting that case Socrates completely overcomes Adeimantus’ re-
sistance to the city of the armed camp and therewith, it seems,
completes the case for genuine justice. According to Socrates, one
LOL
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
substitute for wealth will be the policy of the good city to ally itself
with the many poor in enemy cities against the few rich in them
(423a3-5; cf. 47]b2). But this is not the strongest medicine which
the sternly anti-democratic Adeimantus, who is so averse to innova-
tion (424d3-e4), is forced by Socrates to take. Socrates avails him-
self of the present opportunity to slip in the demand for communism
regarding women and children. Even the necessity of innovation
regarding songs (as distinguished from innovation regarding kinds
of songs) (424cl-5) is imposed on Adeimantus. His accusation of
Socrates had shown that the previously suggested safeguards are
insufficient or that still more radical deviations from custom than
hitherto stated are needed: the purgation of the feverish city re-
quires the complete subversion of the city as hitherto known; it re-
quires an act of what is thought to be the greatest injustice (cf.
426b9-c2). This radical change does not lose its character by the
fact that the first, the most important, and the most resplendent
legal establishments of the good city, i.e. those concerning divine
worship, are left to the decision of the ancestral interpreter, i.e. to
the god who is the ancestral interpreter regarding such matters for
all human beings: to the Delphic Apollo, for if Apollo were only a
Greek god, he could not perform this function for a city which is to
be not only Greek but good as well.
After the founding of the good city is completed, Socrates and
his friends turn to seeking where in it are justice and injustice and
whether the man who is to be happy must possess justice or injus-
tice. They surely succeed in stating what justice is. This is perhaps
the strangest happening in the whole Republic. That Platonic dia-
logue which is devoted to the subject of justice answers the question
of what justice is long before the first half of the work is finished,
long before the most important facts without the consideration of
which the essence of justice cannot be possibly determined in an
adequate manner, have come to light, let alone have been duly con-
sidered. No wonder that the definition of justice at which the Re-
public arrives determines at most the genus to which justice belongs
but not its specific difference (cf. 433a3). One cannot help con-
trasting the Republic with the other dialogues which raise the ques-
tion of what a given virtue is; those other dialogues do not answer
the question with which they deal; they are aporetic dialogues. The
Republic appears to be a dialogue in which the truth is declared, a
dogmatic dialogue. But since that truth is set forth on the basis of
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THE CITY AND MAN
strikingly deficient evidence, one is compelled to say that the Re-
public is in fact as aporetic as the so-called aporetic dialogues. Why
did Plato proceed in this manner in the dialogue treating justice as
distinguished from the dialogues treating the other virtues? Justice,
we may say, is the universal virtue, the virtue most obviously related
to the city. The theme of the Republic is political in more than one
sense, and the political questions of great urgency do not permit
delay: the question of justice must be answered by all means even
if all the evidence needed for an adequate answer is not yet in. The
Laches begins with a question which is much more practical than
the question “what is justice?”, with the question of whether a cer-
tain kind of fighting is good or bad in combat. Since the military
experts disagree, Socrates enters the discussion and shows, in a man-
ner which at any rate in the eyes of those present is unobjection-
able, that the question cannot be answered before they know what
courage is; the discussion of what courage is does not lead to a
result and hence the answer to the initial practical question is post-
poned indefinitely or rather the initial practical question is com-
pletely lost sight of. That question could safely be forgotten
because it was neither very important nor very urgent; other-
wise it would have been settled by the authority in charge without
waiting for an adequate answer to the question of what courage is,
and rightly so because there is no necessary connection between the
two questions. Although the Laches leaves unanswered the question
of what courage is, a careful reading of the dialogue would show
that it answers that question at least as well as the Republic answers
the question of what justice is. The distinction between aporetic
dialogues and dialogues which convey a teaching is deceptive. To
avoid deception, one would have to consider whether or not all dia-
logues which convey a teaching, and especially those in which Soc-
rates is the chief speaker, are not carried on under a pressure com-
parable to the pressure operative in the Republic. For instance, the
conversation which is reported in the Phaedo had to be completed
because it takes place on the day of Socrates’ death. As for the
Banquet, one must not forget that the teaching conveyed therein is
ascribed by Socrates to Diotima.
The premature investigation of what justice is becomes possible
because the interlocutors accept Socrates’ claim that the founding of
the good city has been completed: can anything be lacking after the
first, the most important, and the most resplendent things, i.e. the
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
crowning things, have been provided for? Thereupon Socrates de-
mands from them with some justice that they should seek where in
that city is justice and where in it is injustice. Yet Glaucon forces
him, by reminding him of his promise to come to the assistance of
justice, to participate, nay, to lead in that search. But the inter-
locutors are not aware that Socrates has changed the terms of his
commitment or commission. He was supposed to prove that justice
is choiceworthy for its own sake and not merely on account of its
consequences, but he now declares the question to be whether in
order to be happy a man must possess justice or injustice: justice
may be an indispensable condition for happiness without being
choiceworthy for its own sake, while being necessary only as a
means or while being a necessary evil. Yet while the question of
whether justice is good even in this restricted sense is said to be
still entirely open, Socrates says immediately afterward that if the
city which they have founded in speech is good, it must possess all
virtues and justice among them, i.e. he takes it for granted that jus-
tice is good, or begs the decisive question. These moves succeed
because Glaucon does not have a clear grasp of the issue; he is a
well-wisher of justice but he is also perplexed by the speeches of the
detractors of justice; he would like to believe that justice is the high-
est thing but he is aware of other things which do not seem to be
lower than justice. Therefore when Socrates does not turn imme-
diately to the search for justice but discusses first the other virtues,
Glaucon’s concern with the other virtues is sufficiently great to
prevent him from protesting against Socrates’ roundabout procedure
(cf. 430d4-e1). One is not unjust to anyone if one notes that the
beginning of the discussion of justice itself strangely lacks sim-
plicity, and that justice seemed to be akin to simplicity.
Socrates and Glaucon look first for the three virtues other than
justice. In the city which is founded according to nature, wisdom
resides in the rulers and only in the rulers, for the wise men are by
nature the smallest part of any city and it would not be good for
the city if they were not at its helm. In the good city courage re-
sides in the warriors, for political courage, as distinguished from
brutish fearlessness, arises only through education in those by nature
fitted for that courage. To find moderation is not quite so easy. If it
is self-control regarding pleasures and desires, it is also the preserve
of the rulers and warriors (431b9-d3). Yet it can also be understood
to be the control of what is by nature worse by what is by nature
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THE CITY AND MAN
better, i.e. that through which the whole is in harmony, or the agree-
ment of the naturally s:1perior and the naturally inferior as to which
of the two ought to rule in the city; moderation thus understood
pervades ali parts of the good city. Even so, moderation lacks the
simplicity and univocity of wisdom and of courage. Since controlling
and being controlled differ, the moderation of the upper class differs
from the moderation of the lower class. While Socrates and Glaucon
find the three first virtues in the good city with ease, it is difficult
for them to find justice in it; it seems to reside in a place difficult of
access and lying in deep shadows; in fact, however, it was tumbling
about their feet; they missed it because they looked for it far off.
The difficulty of discovering justice in contradistinction to the other
virtues reflects the fact that the education to justice in contradistinc-
tion to the other virtues has not been discussed. Justice proves to be
the principle which guided the foundation ofthe good city from the
very beginning, which was already effective in the healthy city al-
though incompletely and which is, as we know, not yet completely
effective in the city of the armed camp. Justice consists in every-
one’s doing the one thing pertaining to the city for which his nature
is best fitted or simply in everyone’s minding his own business: it
is by virtue of justice thus understood that the three other virtues
are virtues (433a-b). More precisely, a city is just if each of its
three parts (the money-makers, the soldiers, and the rulers) does its
own work and only its own work. Justice is then like moderation
and unlike wisdom and courage not the preserve of a single part but
required of every part. Hence justice, like moderation, has a differ-
ent character in each of the three classes. One must assume, for
instance, that the justice of the wise rulers is tinged by their wisdom
(to say nothing of their peculiar incentive to justice) and the justice
of the money-makers is colored by their vulgarity, for if even the
courage of the warriors is only political or civic courage and not
courage pure and simple (430c; cf. Phaedo 82a), it stands to reason
that their justice too—to say nothing at all of the justice of the
money-makers—will not be justice pure and simple. The courage of
the warriors is not courage pure and simple because it is essentially
dependent on law (cf. 429c7 with 412e6-8 and 413c5-7) or because
they lack the highest responsibility. In order to discover justice pure
and simple, it becomes necessary then to consider justice in the
individual human being. This consideration would be easiest if jus-
tice in the individual were identical with justice in the city; this
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
would require that the individual or rather his soul consist of the
same three kinds of “natures” as the city. We note that the parallel
between the city and the individual by which the good city stands
or falls, demands the abstraction from the body (cf. the transition
from the individual to the soul in 434d-435c). A provisional consid-
eration of the soul seems to establish the requirement mentioned:
the soul contains desire, spiritedness or anger (440a5, c2), and rea-
son, just as the city consists of the money-makers, the warriors, and
the rulers. Hence we may conclude that a man is just if each of
these three parts of the soul does its own work and only its own
work, i.e. if his soul is in a state of health. But if justice is health of
the soul and conversely injustice is disease of the soul, it is obvious
that justice is good and injustice is bad, regardless of whether or
not one is known to be just or unjust (444d-445b). A man is just if
the rational part of his soul is wise and rules (44le) and if the
spirited part, being the subject and ally of the rational part, assists
it in controlling the multitude of desires which become almost in-
evitably desires for more and ever more money. This means how-
ever that only the man in whom reason properly cultivated rules
the two other parts properly cultivated, i.e. only the wise man, can
be truly just (cf. 442c); the soul cannot be healthy if one of its
parts, and especially its best part is atrophied. No wonder then that
the just man eventually proves to be identical with the philosopher
(580d-583b). And the philosopher can be just without being a
member of the just city. The money-makers and the warriors are not
truly just because their justice derives exclusively from habituation
of one kind or another as distinguished from philosophy; hence in
the deepest recesses of their souls they long for tyranny, i.e. for com-
plete injustice (619b-d). We see then how right Socrates was when
he expected to find injustice in the good city (427d). This is not to
deny of course that as members of the good city the non-philoso-
phers would act much more justly than they do as members of the
actual cities.
The justice of those who are not wise appears in a different light
in the consideration of justice in the city on the one hand and in the
consideration of justice in the soul on the other. This fact shows that
the parallel between the city and the soul is misleading. That par-
allel is defective because the definition of justice which supports it
is defective. Justice is said to consist in each part of the city or of
the soul “doing the work for which it is best fitted by nature” or in.
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THE CITY AND MAN
a “kind” of this; a part of the city or of the soul is said to be just if .
it does its work or minds its own business “in a certain manner.” ©
The indefiniteness is removed if one replaces “in a certain manner”
by “in the best manner” or simply by “well” (433a-b, 443c4~d7; .
Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1098a7-12). If each part of the city does its
work well, and hence has the virtue or virtues belonging to it, the
city is wise, courageous, and moderate and therewith perfectly
good: it does not need justice in addition. The case of the individual
is different. If he is wise, courageous, and moderate, he is not yet
perfectly good; for his goodness toward his fellows, his willingness
to help them, to care for them, or to serve them (412d13), as dis-
tinguished from unwillingness to harm them, does not follow from
his possessing the three first virtues. The three first virtues are
sufficient for the city because the city is self-sufficient, and they are
insufficient for the individual because the individual is not self-
sufficient. It is because justice as a distinct virtue is superfluous in
the case of the good city that Socrates and Glaucon have difficulty
in seeing it when they look for it.
The parallel between the city and the soul requires that just as
in the city the warriors occupy a higher rank than the money-
makers, in the soul spiritedness occupy a higher rank than desire
(440e2-7). It is very plausible that those who uphold the city
against foreign and domestic enemies and who have received a
music education should be more highly respected than those who
lack public responsibility as well as music education. But it is much
less plausible that spiritedness as such should be higher in rank
than desire as such. It is true that spiritedness includes a large
variety of phenomena ranging from the most noble indignation
about injustice, turpitude, and meanness down to the anger of a
spoiled child who resents being deprived of anything, however bad,
that he desires (cf. 441a7-b2). But it is also clear that the same
holds of desire: one kind of desire is eros, which ranges in its
healthy forms from the longing for immortality through offspring
via the longing for immortality through fame to the longing for
immortality through participation by knowledge in the things which
are unchangeable in every respect. The assertion that spiritedness
as such is higher in rank than desire as such is then questionable.
Although or because Glaucon denies it with an oath, spiritedness
does conspire with desire against reason (440b4-8). Let us also
never forget that while there is a philosophic eros, there is no
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
philosophic indignation, desire for victory, or anger. (Consider
536b8-c7.) The parallel of the city and the soul is based on a
deliberate abstraction from eros, an abstraction characteristic of the
Republic. This abstraction shows itself most strikingly in two facts:
when Socrates mentions the fundamental needs which give rise to
human society, he is silent about the need for procreation, and when
he describes the tyrant, he presents him as Eros incarnate (573b-e,
574d-575a). This is to say nothing of the fact that the Republic
almost opens with a curse on eros (329b6-d1). In the thematic dis-
cussion of the respective rank of spiritedness and desire, Socrates
is silent about eros.*? It seems that there is a tension between eros
and the city and hence between eros and justice: only through the
depreciation of eros can the city come into its own. Eros obeys its
own laws, not the laws of the city however good; lovers are not
necessarily fellow citizens (or fellow party-members); in the good
city eros is simply subjected to the requirements of the city: only
those are permitted to join each other for procreation who promise
to bring forth the right kind of offspring. The abolition of privacy
is a blow struck at eros. The city is not an erotic association al-
though in a way it presupposes erotic associations. There is not an
erotic class of the city as there are classes of rulers, warriors, and
money-makers. The city does not procreate as it deliberates, wages
wars, and owns property. As far as possible, patriotism, dedication
to the common good, justice, must take the place of eros, and
patriotism has a closer kinship to spiritedness, eagerness to fight,
“waspishness,” indignation, and anger than to eros. Both the erotic
association and the political association are exclusive, but they are
exclusive in different ways: the lovers seclude themselves from the
others (from “the world”) without opposition to the others or hate
of the others, but the city cannot be said to seclude itself from
“the world”: it separates itself from others by opposing or resisting
them; the opposition of “We and They” is essential to the political
association. The superiority of spiritedness to desire seems to be
shown by the fact that every act of human. spiritedness seems to
include a sense that one is in the right (440c). A considerable part
“Cf, 439d6. Cf. the similar procedure in the Timaeus where the thesis
asserting the superiority of spiritedness to desire is repeated with the conse-
quence that original man, man as he left the hands of his Maker, is (sit venia
verbo) a sexless male; cf. 69d-7la and 72e-78a with 9la-d; cf. also 88a8—b2.
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THE CITY AND MAN
of the acts of justice are acts of punishment, and punishment is, to
say the least, assisted by anger.‘* Anger is so much concerned with
right that it treats even lifeless things as if they could do wrong;
spiritedness is more apt to “personify” its objects than desire (cf.
440a1-3; 469e]-2). But whether this fact establishes a simple su-
periority of spiritedness to desire depends on what we have to
think about the worth of “personification.” The Republic supplies
food for thought on this subject especially through the presentation
of Glaucon, the most spirited speaker in the work, who as Spirited-
ness incarnate comes to the assistance of Reason in the founding of
the just city. What was said about the abstraction from eros in the
Republic is not contradicted by the fact that the education of the
warriors is meant to culminate in the eros of the beautiful; that eros
points to the philosophic eros, the eros peculiar to the philosophers
(501d2), which becomes quest for knowledge of the idea of the
good, an idea higher than the idea of justice. The Republic could
unqualifiedly abstract from eros only if it could abstract from phi-
losophy. But there is a tension between philosophy and the city;
on the level of this tension, the tension between eros and justice
recurs. The Republic claims that the tension between philosophy
and the city would be overcome if the philosophers become kings.
We must investigate whether it is in fact overcome. We are guided
toward this investigation by that qualified abstraction from eros
which we have pointed out.
The good city is characterized above all by the rule of those
best in philosophy and with regard to war (543a5)—of those who
come closest to the virgin goddess Athena (Timaeus 24c7-d1), to
a goddess who, in addition, was not formed in a womb. The good
city is therefore characterized by the pre-eminence of reason and
spiritedness as distinguished from eros in the primary sense. Prior
to the emergence of philosophy the good city is characterized by
the facts that it attributes a higher rank to spiritedness than to
desire and that it is a city of artisans. There is a connection between
these two facts. The arts are unerotic. They are unerotic because
they are concerned with producing useful things, ie. particular
goods (428d12-el), or means, whereas eros tends toward the com-
plete good. Yet because of their partial character the arts are
ministerial to the art of arts and call for it. The art of arts, ie.
“® Cf. Laws 731b3-d5,
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
philosophy, is concerned with the complete good simply, “the idea
of the good.” Just as art, eros points to philosophy as to its highest
form. Toward philosophy, art and eros, the most pedestrian or utili-
tarian and the least utilitarian, manifestly converge. That spirited-
ness should also tend toward philosophy is, to say the least, less
manifest.“
The founding of the good city started from the fact that men
are by nature different and this proved to mean that they are by
nature of unequal rank. They are unequal in the first place with
regard to their abilities to acquire virtue. The inequality which is
due to nature is increased and deepened by the different kinds of
education or habituation and the different ways of life (commu-
nistic or non-communistic) which the different parts of the good
city enjoy. As a result, the good city comes to resemble a caste
society. A Platonic character who hears the account of the good
city of the Republic is reminded by it of the caste system estab-
lished in ancient Egypt, although it is quite clear that in Egypt the
rulers were priests and not philosophers (Timaeus 24a—b). Yet in
the good city of the Republic, not descent but everyone's natural
gifts determine to which class he will belong. But this leads to a
difficulty. The members of the upper class which lives commu-
nistically are not supposed to know who their natural parents are,
for they are supposed to regard all men and women belonging to
the older generation of the upper class as their parents. On the other
hand, the gifted children of the non-communist lower class are to be
transferred to the upper class (and vice versa); since their superior
gifts are not necessarily recognizable at the moment of their birth,
they may come to know their natural parents and even become
attached to them; this would seem to unfit them for transfer to the
upper class. There are three ways in which this difficulty can be
overcome. The first is to make post-natal selection superfluous by
guaranteeing the desired result through the right selection of par-
ents, and this means of course of upper-class parents: every child
of the properly chosen parents is fit to belong to the upper class.
This is the solution underlying Socrates’ discussion of the nuptial
number (546c6-d3). The second way is to extend communism and
—considering the connection between way of life and education—
“This difficulty is adumbrated most impressively at the end of the Laws
(963e). Cf. the preceding note.
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THE CITY AND MAN
music education to the lower class (401b-c, 421e-422d, 460a, 543a).
According to Aristotle (Politics 1264a13-17) Socrates has left it
undecided whether in the good city absolute communism is limited
to the upper class or extends also to the lower class. To leave this
question undecided would be in agreement with Socrates’ professed
low opinion of the importance of the lower class (421a, 434a). The
ambiguity regarding music education is due in other words to the
anticipatory comparison of music education with the highest educa-
tion, compared with which the difference between the education of
the warriors and that of the money-makers becomes insignificant.
Yet from any point of view but the highest that difference is of
course very important. One must not forget that the class of money-
makers, to say the least, contains those who lack good natures but
are curable so that they do not have to be killed (410a1-4, 456d8-
10). Accordingly Socrates alludes to the need for untrue stories to
be addressed, not to the warriors, but to those insensitive to the
beautiful or to honor, i.e. to the need for terrifying or punitive lies
(386cl, 387b4-c3), for the multitude wholly deprived of political
power would seem to be in the greatest need of incentives for
obeying the rulers wholeheartedly. There can then be only little
doubt that Socrates wishes to limit communism and music education
to the upper class (398b2~4, 415eff., 431b4~—d3). Therefore, in order
to remove the difficulty under discussion, he can hardly avoid
making an individual’s belonging to the upper or lower class heredi-
tary and thus violating one of the most elementary principles of
justice. Apart from this, one may wonder whether a perfectly clear
line between the gifted and those not gifted for the profession of
warriors can be drawn, hence whether a perfectly just assignment
of the individuals to the upper or lower class is possible, and hence
whether the good city can be simply just (cf. 427d). In addition, if
communism is limited to the upper class, there will be privacy both
in the money-making class and among the philosophers as philoso-
phers, for there may very well be only a single philosopher in the
city and surely never a herd or a platoon: the warriors are the only
class which is entirely political or public or entirely dedicated to
the city; the warriors alone therefore present the clearest case of the
just life in one sense of the word “just.”
It is necessary to understand why communism is limited to the
upper class or what the natural obstacle to communism is. That
which is by nature private or a man’s own is the body and only the
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
body (464d; cf. Laws 739c). The most complete communism would
therefore require complete abstraction from the body. The apprexi-
mation to communism pure and simple which is demanded in the
Republic, and which we have called absolute communism, requires
an approximation to the complete abstraction from the body. The
needs or desires of the body induce men to extend the sphere of
the private, of what is each man’s own, as far as they can. This
most powerful striving is countered by music education which
brings about moderation, i.e. by a most severe training of the soul
of which, it seems, only a minority of men is capable. Yet this kind
of education does not extirpate the natural desire of each for things
(and human beings) of his own: the warriors will not accept
absolute communism if they are not subject to the philosophers. It
thus becomes clear that the striving for one’s own is countered
ultimately only by philosophy, by the quest for truth which as such
cannot be anyone’s private possession. Whereas the private par
excellence is the body, the common par excellence is the. mind, the
pure mind, rather than the soul in general, for only pure thoughts
can be simply identical and known to be simply identical in differ-
ent individuals. The superiority of communism to non-communism
as taught in the Republic is intelligible only as a reflection of the
superiority of philosophy to non-philosophy. Yet while philosophy
is the most common, it is also, as was indicated in the preceding
paragraph, the most private. While in one respect the warriors’
life is the just life par excellence, in another respect only the phi-
losopher’s life is just. The distinction between two meanings of
justice which is implied cannot become clear before one has under-
stood the teaching of the Republic regarding the relation of philos-
ophy and the city. We must therefore make a new beginning.
At the end of the fourth book it looks as if Socrates had com-
pleted the task which Glaucon and Adeimantus had imposed .on
him, for he had shown that justice as health of the soul is desirable
not only because of its consequences but above all for its own sake.
But then, at the beginning of the fifth book, we are suddenly con-
fronted by a new beginning, by the repetition of a scene which had
occurred at the very beginning. Both at the very beginning and at
the beginning of the fifth book (and nowhere else), Socrates’ com-
panions make a decision, nay, take a vote, and Socrates, who had
no share in the decision, obeys it (cf. 449b-450a with 3270-328b3).
Socrates’ companions behave in both cases like a city (an assembly
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THE CITY AND MAN
of citizens), if of the smallest possible city (369d11-12). But there
is this decisive difference between the two scenes: whereas Thrasy-
machus was absent from the first scene, he has become a member
of the city in the second scene. It would seem that the foundation
of the good city requires that Thrasymachus be converted into
one of its citizens.
At the beginning of the fifth book Socrates’ companions force
him to take up the subject of communism in regard to women and
children. They do not object to the proposal itself in the way in
which Adeimantus had objected to the communism regarding prop-
erty at the beginning of the fourth book, for even Adeimantus is no
longer the same man he was at that time. They only wish to know
the precise manner in which communism regarding women and
children is to be managed. Socrates replaces the question raised by
these more incisive questions: (1) is that-communism possible?
(2) is it desirable? It appears that communism regarding women
is the consequence or the presupposition of the equality of the two
sexes concerning the work they must do: the city cannot afford to
lose half of its adult population from its working and fighting force,
and there is no essential difference regarding natural gifts for the
various arts between men and women. The demand for equality
of the two sexes requires a complete upheaval of custom, an up-
heaval which is here presented less as shocking than as laughable;
the demand is justified on the ground that only the useful is fair
or noble and that only what is bad, i.e. against nature, is laughable;
the customary difference of conduct between the two sexes is re-
jected as being against nature, and the revolutionary change sug-
gested is meant to bring about the order according to nature
(456cl-3). For justice requires that every human being should
practice the art for which he or she is fitted by nature, regardless
of what custom or convention may dictate. Socrates shows first that
the equality of the two sexes is possible, i.e. in agreement with the
nature of the two sexes as their nature appears when viewed with
regard to its aptitude for the practice of the various arts, and then
that it is desirable. In proving the possibility he explicitly abstracts
from the difference between the sexes in regard to procreation. As
we must repeat, this means that that argument of the Republic as a
whole, according to which the city is a community of male and
female artisans, abstracts to the highest degree possible from that
activity essential to the city which takes place “by nature” and not
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
“by art”; it means at the same time that it abstracts from the most
important bodily difference within the human race, ie. it abstracts
as much as possible from the body: the difference between men and
women is treated as if it were comparable to the difference between
bald and long-haired men (454c-e). Socrates turns then to the
communism regarding women and children and shows that it is
desirable because it would make the city more “one” and hence
more perfect than a city consisting of separate families would be:
the city should be as similar as possible to a single human being, or
to a single living body (462cl0-d7, 464b2), i.e. to a natural being.
The political argument which is directed toward the greatest pos-
sible unity of the city conceals the trans-political argument which
is directed toward the naturalness of the city. The abolition of the
family does not mean of course the introduction of license or
promiscuity; it means the most severe regulation of sexual inter-
course from the point of view of what is useful for the city or what
is required for the common good. The consideration of the useful,
one might say, supersedes the consideration of the sacred (458e4):
human males and females are to be copulated with exclusive regard
to the production of the best offspring in the spirit in which the
breeders of dogs, birds, and horses proceed; the claims of eros are
simply silenced; the new order naturally affects the customary pro-
hibitions against incest, the most sacred rules of customary justice
(cf. 461b-e). In the new scheme no one will know any more his
natural parents, children, brothers and sisters but everyone will
regard all men and women of the older generation as his fathers
and mothers, of his own generation as his brothers and sisters, and
of the younger generation as his children (463c). This means how-
ever that the city constructed according to nature lives in a most
important respect more according to convention than according to
nature. For this reason we are disappointed to see that while
Socrates takes up the question of whether communism regarding
women and children is possible, he drops it immediately (466d6ff.).
It looks as if it were too much even for Socrates to prove that
possibility, given the fact that men seem to desire naturally to have
children of their own (cf. 330c3-4; 467a10-b1). Since the institu-
tion in question is indispensable for the good city, Socrates thus
leaves open the question of the possibility of the good city, ie. of
the just city, as such. And this happens to his listeners, and to the
readers of the Republic, after they have brought the greatest sacri-
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THE CITY AND MAN
fices—such as the sacrifice of eros as well as of the family—for the
sake of justice. =
Socrates is not for long allowed to escape from his awesome duty
to answer the question of the possibility of the just city. The manly
or rather spirited Glaucon compels him to face that question. Per-
haps we should say that by apparently escaping to the subject of
war—a subject both: easier in itself and more attractive to Glaucon
than the communism regarding women and children—yet treating
that subject according to the stern demands of justice and thus
depriving it of much of its attractiveness, he compels Glaucon to
compel him to return to the fundamental question. Perhaps we
should also say that Socrates does not truly run away from the
subject of communism regarding women and children or of the
equality of the two sexes by turning to the subject of war, since
the only relevant difference between the two sexes was said to be
that men are stronger than women (45lel-2, 455el-2, 456a10-11,
457a9-10), a difference most relevant for fighting, and the death of
female fighters is a graver loss for the city than the death of male
fighters given the different function of the two sexes in procreation;
besides, war may be said to prepare the abolition of the family.
Be this as it may, the question to which they return is not the same
which they left. The question which they left was whether the
good city is possible in the sense that it is in agreement with human
nature. The question to which they return is whether the good city
is possible in the sense that it can be brought into being by the
transformation of an actual city. The latter question might be
thought to presuppose the affirmative answer to the first question,
but this is not quite correct. As we learn now, our whole effort to
find out what justice is (so that we will be enabled to see how it is
related to happiness) was a quest for “justice itself” as a “pattern.”
By seeking for justice as a pattern we imply that the just man and
the just city will not be perfectly just but will indeed approximate
justice itself with particular closeness (472a-b): only justice itself
is perfectly just (479a; cf. 538cff.). We thus learn. that not even the
characteristic institutions of the good city (absolute communism,
equality of the sexes, and the rule of philosophers) are simply just.
Justice itself is not “possible” in the sense that it is capable of
coming into being because it is always without being capable of
undergoing any change whatever. Justice is a “form” or an “idea,”
one of many “ideas.” Ideas are the only things which strictly speak-
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
ing “are,” i.e. are without any admixture of non-being; they are
beyond all becoming and whatever is becoming is between being
and non-being. Since the ideas are the cnly things which are beyond
all change, they are in a sense the cause of all change. For instance,
the idea of justice is the cause of anything (human beings,
cities, laws, commands, actions) having become just. They are self-
subsisting beings which subsist always. They are of the utmost
splendor. For instance, the idea of justice is perfectly just. But
this splendor escapes the eyes of the body. The ideas are “visible”
only to the eye of the mind, and the mind as mind perceives
nothing but ideas. Yet, as is indicated by the facts that there are
many ideas and that the mind which perceives the ideas is radically
different from the ideas themselves, there must be something higher
than the ideas: the idea of the good, which is in a sense the cause
of all ideas as well as of the mind perceiving them (517cl-5).
Plato and Aristotle agree that in the highest, the perfect knower
and the perfect known must be united; but whereas according to
Aristotle the highest is knowledge or thought thinking itself, accord-
ing to Plato the highest is beyond the difference between knower
and known or is not a thinking being. It also becomes questionable
whether the highest as Plato understands it is still properly called
an idea; Socrates uses “the idea of the good” and “the good”
synonymously (505a2-b3). It is only through the perception of the
good on the part of properly equipped human beings that the good
city can come into being and subsist for a while.
The doctrine of ideas which Socrates expounds to his interlocu-
tors is very hard to understand; to begin with, it is utterly incredible,
not to say that it appears to be fantastic. Hitherto we had been
given to understand that justice is fundamentally a certain character
of the human soul or of the city, i.e. something which is not self-
subsisting. Now we are asked to believe that it is self-subsisting,
being at home as it were in an entirely different place from human
beings and everything else participating in justice (cf. 509d1-510a7;
Phaedrus 247c3). No one has ever succeeded in giving a satisfactory |
or clear account of this doctrine of ideas. It is possible however to
define rather precisely the central difficulty. “Idea” means primarily
the looks or shape of a thing; it means then a kind or class of things
which are united by the fact that they all possess the same looks,
the same character or power, or the same “nature”; therewith it
means the class-character or the nature of the things belonging to
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THE CITY AND MAN
the class in question: the idea of a thing is that which we seek when
we try to find out the “What” or the “nature” of a thing or a class
of things. The connection between “idea” and “nature” appears in
the Republic from the facts that “the idea of justice” is called “that
which is just by nature” (501b2) and the ideas in contradistinction
to the things which are not ideas are said to be “in nature” (597b5—
e4). This does not explain however why the ideas are presented as
“separated” from the things which are what they are by partici-
pating in an idea, or, in other words, why “dogness” (the class
character of dogs) should be “the true dog.” It seems that two kinds
of phenomena lend support to Socrates’ assertion. In the first place,
the mathematical things as such can never be found among sensible
things; no line drawn on sand or paper is a line as meant by the
mathematician. Secondly and above all, what we mean by justice
and kindred things is not as such in its purity or perfection neces-
sarily found in human beings or societies; it rather seems that what
is meant by justice transcends everything which men ever achieve;
precisely the justest men were and are the ones most aware of the
shortcomings of their justice. Socrates seems to say that what is
patently true of mathematical things and of the virtues is true uni-
versally: there is an idea of the bed or of the table as of the circle
and of justice. Now while it is obviously reasonable to say that a
perfect circle or perfect justice transcends everything which can be
seen, it is hard to say that a perfect bed is something on which no
man can ever rest or that a perfect howl is completely inaudible.
However this may be, Glaucon and Adeimantus accept this doctrine
of ideas with relative ease. They surely have heard of the ideas,
even of the idea of the good, many times before. This does not
guarantee however that they have a genuine understanding of that
doctrine.** Yet they have heard still more frequently, and in a way
they know, that there are gods like Dike (536b3; cf. 487a6), or Nike
who is not this victory or that victory, nor this or that statue of
Nike, but one and the same self-subsisting being which is in a sense
the cause of every victory and which is of unbélievable splendor.
More generally, Glaucon and Adeimantus know that there are gods
—self-subsisting beings which are the cause of everything good,
which are of unbelievable splendor, and which cannot be appre-
hended by the senses since they never change their “form” (cf.
“505a2-8, 507a8-9, 509a6-8, 582d2-5, 533al-2, 596a5-9, 597a8-9.
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
379a—b and 380dff.). This is not to deny that there is a profound
difference between the gods.as understood in the theology of the
Republic and the ideas. It is merely to assert that those who have
come to accept that theology are best prepared for accepting the
doctrine of ideas. The movement to which the reader of the Re-
public is exposed leads from the city as the association of the fathers
who are subject to the law and ultimately to the gods toward the
city as an association of artisans who are subject to the philosophers
and ultimately to the ideas.
We must now return to the question of the possibility of the just
city. We have learned that justice is not “possible” in the sense that
it can come into being. We learn immediately afterwards that not
only justice itself but also the just city is not “possible” in the sense
indicated. This does not mean that the just city as meant and as
outlined in the Republic is an idea like justice itself and still less
that it is an ideal: “ideal” is not a Platonic term. The just city is
not a self-subsisting being like the idea of justice, located so to
speak in a super-heavenly place. Its status is rather like that of a
perfectly beautiful human being as painted which is only by virtue
of the painter’s painting; it is akin to that of Glaucon’s statues of
the perfectly just man who is thought to be perfectly unjust and
of the perfectly unjust man who is thought to be perfectly just;
more precisely, the just city is only “in speech”: it “is” only by
virtue of having been figured out with a view to justice itself or to
what is by nature right on the one hand and the human all too
human on the other. Although the just city is of decidedly lower
rank than justice itself, even the just city as a pattern is not capable
of coming into being as it has been blueprinted; only approxima-
tions to it can be expected in cities which are in deed and not
merely in speech (472b1-473b3; cf. 500c2-501c9 with 484c6-d3 and
592b2-3). It is not clear what this means. Does it mean that the
best possible solution will be a compromise so that we must become
reconciled to a certain degree of private property (e.g. that we must
permit every soldier to keep his shoes and the like as long as he
lives) and a certain degree of inequality of the sexes (e.g. that
certain military and administrative functions will remain a preserve
of the male warriors)? There is no reason to suppose that this is
what Socrates meant. In the light of the succeeding part of the
conversation the following suggestion would seem to be plausible.
The assertion according to which the just city cannot come into
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being as blueprinted is provisional or prepares the assertion accord-
ing to which the just city, while capable of coming into being as
blueprinted, is very unlikely to do so. At any rate immediately after
having declared that only an approximation to the good city can
reasonably be expected, Socrates raises the question, Which feasible
change in the actual cities would be the necessary and sufficient
condition of their transformation into good cities. His answer is that
that condition is the “coincidence” of political power and philosophy:
the philosophers must rule as kings or the kings must genuinely and
adequately philosophize. That coincidence will bring about “the
cessation of evil,” i.e. both private and public happiness (473cl1-
e5). No less than this must be possible if justice as full dedication
to the city is to be choiceworthy for its own sake; this condition can
be fulfilled only if the city is of consummate goodness, i.e. such as to
bring about the happiness of “the human race.” One even begins
to wonder whether the coincidence of philosophy and _ political
power is not only the necessary but the sufficient condition of uni-
versal happiness, i.e. whether absolute communism and the equality
of the sexes are still at all necessary. Socrates’ answer is not alto-
gether surprising. If justice is giving or leaving to each what is good
for his soul but what is good for the soul is the virtues, it follows
that no man can be truly just who does not know “the virtues them-
selves” or generally the ideas, or who is not a philosopher.
By answering the question of how the good city is possible,
Socrates introduces philosophy as a theme of the Republic. This
means that in the Republic philosophy is not introduced as the end
of man but as a means for realizing justice and therefore the just
city, the city as armed camp which is characterized by absolute
communism and equality of the sexes in the upper class, the class
of warriors. Since the rule of philosophers is not introduced as an
ingredient of the just city but only as a means for its realization,
Aristotle legitimately disregards this institution in his critical analysis
of the Republic. Philosophy is introduced in the context of the
question of the possibility, as distinguished from the question of the
desirability, of the city of the armed camp. The question of possi-
bility—of what is conformable to nature and in particular to the
nature of man—did not arise in regard to the healthy city. The
question of possibility came to the fore only at the beginning of the
fifth book as a consequence of an intervention initiated by Polemar-
chus. The two earlier comparable interventions—that of Glaucon
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ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
after the description of the healthy city and that of Adeimantus
after the abolitioa of private property and of privacy altogether—
were limited to the question of desirability: Polemarchus is more
important for the action of the Republic than one might desire.“*
He supplies an ‘indispensable corrective to the action of the two
brothers. and especially of Glaucon. As a remote consequence of
Polemarchus’ <ction Socrates succeeds in reducing the question of
the possibility of the just city to the question of the possibility of the
coincidence of philosophy and political power. That such a coinci-
dence should be possible is to begin with most incredible: everyone
can see that the philosophers are useless, if not even harmful, in
politics. Socrates, who had experiences of his own with his own
city—experiences to be crowned by his capital punishment—regards
this accusation of the philosophers as well-founded, although in
need of deeper exploration. He traces the antagonism of the cities
to the philosophers primarily to the cities: the present cities, i.e. the
cities not ruled by philosophers, are like assemblies of madmen
which corrupt most of those fit to become philosophers, and to
which those who have succeeded against all odds in becoming
philosophers rightly tur their backs in disgust. But Socrates is far
from absolving the philosophers altogether. Only a radical change
on the part of both the cities and the philosophers can bring about
that harmony between them for which they seem to be meant by
nature. The change consists precisely in this, that the cities become
willing to be ruled by philosophers and the philosophers become
willing to rule the cities. This coincidence of philosophy and politi-
cal power is very difficult to achieve, very improbable, but not
impossible. To bring about the needed change on the part of the
city, of the non-philosophers or the multitude, the right kind of
persuasion is necessary and sufficient. The right kind of persuasion
is supplied by the art of persuasion, the art of Thrasymachus, di-
rected by the philosopher and in the service of philosophy. No
wonder then that in this context Socrates declares that he and
Thrasymachus have just become friends, having not been enemies
before either. The multitude of the non-philosophers is good-natured
and therefore persuadable. Without “Thrasymachus” there will
never be a just city. We are compelled to expel Homer and Sopho-
cles but we must invite Thrasymachus..Thrasymachus justly occu-
“ Cf. Socrates’ praise of Polemarchus in the Phaedrus 257b3-4.
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THE CITY AND MAN
pies the central place among the interlocutors of the Republic, the
place between the pair consisting of the father and the son and the
pair consisting of the brothers. Socrates and Thrasymachus “have
just become friends” because Socrates had just said that in order to
escape destruction, the city must not permit philosophizing, and
especially that philosophizing which is concerned with “speeches,”
to the young, i.e. the gravest kind of “corrupting the young”; Adei-
mantus believes that Thrasymachus will be passionately opposed to
this proposal; but Socrates who knows better holds that by making
that proposal he has become the friend of Thrasymachus who is or
plays the city. After having become the friend of Thrasymachus,
Socrates turns to vindicating the many against the charge that they
cannot be persuaded of the worth of philosophy or to taming the
many (497d8-498d4, 499d8-500a8, 501c4-502a4). His success with
the many however is not genuine since they are not present or since
the many whom he tames are not the many in deed but only the
many in speech; he lacks the art of taming the many in deed which
is only the reverse side of the art of arousing the many to anger,
that single art which is the art of Thrasymachus. The many will
have to be addressed by Thrasymachus and he who has listened to
Socrates will succeed.
But if this is so why did not the philosophers of old, to say
nothing of Socrates himself, succeed in persuading the multitude,
directly or through such intermediaries as Thrasymachus, of the
supremacy of philosophy and the philosophers and thus bring about
the rule of the philosophers and therewith the salvation and the |
happiness of their cities? Strange as it may sound, in this part of
the conversation it appears easier to persuade the multitude to
accept the mule of the philosophers than to persuade the philoso-
phers to rule the multitude: the philosophers cannot be persuaded,
they can only be compelled to rule the cities (499b-c, 500d4-5,
520a-d, 521b7, 539e2-3). Only the non-philosophers could compel
the philosophers to take care of the city. But, given the prejudice
against the philosophers, this compulsion will not be forthcoming
if the philosophers do not in the first place persuade the non-
philosophers to compel the philosophers to rule over them, and this
persuasion will not be forthcoming, given the philosophers’ unwill-
ingness to rule. We arrive then at the conclusion that the just city
is not possible because of the philosophers’ unwillingness to rule.
Why are the philosophers unwilling to rule? Being dominated
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by the desire, the eros, for knowledge as the one thing needful, or
knowing that philosophy is the most pleasant and blessed possession,
the philosophers have no leisure for looking down at human affairs,
let alone for taking care of them. They believe that while still alive
they. are already firmly settled far away from their cities in the
“Islands of the Blessed.” Hence only compulsion could induce them
to: take part in public life in the just city, fe. in the city which
regards the proper upbringing of the philosophers as its most im-
portant task. Having perceived the truly grand, the philosophers
regard the human things as paltry. Their very justice—their abstain-
ing from wronging their fellow human beings—flows from con-
tempt for the things for which the non-philosophers hotly contest.
They know that the life not dedicated to philosophy and therefore
even political life at its best is like life in a cave, so much so that
the city can be identified with the Cave.‘7 The cave-dwellers, i.e.
the non-philosophers, see only the shadows of artifacts (514b-515c).
That is to say, whatever they perceive they understand in the light
of opinions sanctified by the fiat of legislators, regarding the just
and noble things, i.e. of fabricated or conventional opinions, and
they do not know that these their most cherished convictions possess
no higher status than that of opinions. For if even the best city
stands or falls by a fundamental falsehood, albeit a noble falsehood,
it can be expected that the opinions on which the imperfect cities
rest or in which they believe will not be true, to say the least.
Precisely the best of the non-philosophers, the good citizens, are
passionately attached to these opinions and therefore passionately
opposed to philosophy (517a) which is the attempt to go beyond
opinion toward knowledge: the multitude is not as persuadable by
the philosophers as we sanguinely assumed in an earlier part of the
argument. This is the true reason why the coincidence of philosophy
and political power is extremely improbable: philosophy and the
city tend away from one another in opposite directions.
The difficulty of overcoming the natural tension between the
city and the philosophers induces Socrates to turn from the question
whether the just city is “possible” in the sense of being conformable
to human nature, to the question of whether the just city is “pos-
sible” in the sense of being capable of being brought to light by
the transformation of an actual city. The first question, understood
“ 485b, 486a-b, 496c6, 499cl, 501d1-5, 517c7-9, 519c2-d7, 539e.
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in contradistinction to the second, points to the question whether
the just city could not come into being through the settling together
of men who*were before wholly unassociated. To this question
Socrates tacitly gives a negative answer by turning to the question
of whether the just city could be brought into being by the trans-
formation of an actual city. The good city cannot be brought to
light out of human beings who have not yet undergone any human
discipline, out of “primitives” or “stupid animals” or “savages” cruel
or gentle—the good city cannot be brought to light out of the
healthy city of the Republic; the potential members of the good
city must already have acquired the rudiments of civilized life; the
process of long duration during which pre-political men become
political men cannot be the work of the founder or legislator of the
good city but is presupposed by him (cf. 376e2-4). But on the
other hand, if the potential good city must be an old city, its citizens
will have become thoroughly moulded by the imperfect laws or
customs of their city, hallowed by antiquity, and will have become
passionately attached to them. Socrates is therefore compelled to
revise his original suggestion according to which the rule of the
philosophers is the necessary and sufficient condition for the coming
into being of the just city. Whereas he had originally suggested that
the good city will come into being if the philosophers become kings,
he finally suggests that the good city will come into being if, when
the philosophers have become kings, they expel everyone older
than ten from the city, i.e. separate the children completely from
their parents and their parents’ ways and bring them up in the
entirely novel ways of the good city (540d-541b; cf. 499b; 501a,e).
By taking over a city, the philosophers make sure that their subjects
will not be savages; by expelling everyone older than ten, they make
sure that their subjects will not be enslaved by any traditional
civility. The solution is elegant but it leaves one wondering how the
philosophers can compel everyone older than ten to obey submis-
sively the command decreeing the expulsion and the separation,
since they cannot yet have trained a warrior class absolutely
obedient to them. This is not to deny that Socrates could have
persuaded many fine young men, and not a few old ones, not indeed
to leave the city and to live in the fields, but to believe that the
multitude could be, not indeed compelled, but persuaded by the
philosophers to leave their city and their children to the philoso-
phers and to live in the fields so that justice will be done.
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The just sy is then impossible. It is impossible because it is
against nature. Tt is against nature that there should ever be a
“cessation of evils,” “for it is necessary that there.should always be .
something opposed to the good, and evil necessarily wanders about
the mortal nature and the region here."“* It is against nature that
rhetoric should have the power ascribed to it: that it should be able
to overcome the resistance rooted in men’s love of their own and
ultimately in the body; as Aristotle puts it, the soul can rule the
body only despotically, not by persuasion; the Republic repeats, in
order to overcome it, the error of the sophists regarding the power
of speech. The just city is against nature because the equality of
the sexes and absolute communism are against nature. It holds no
attraction for anyone except for such lovers of justice as are willing
to destroy the family as something essentially conventional and to
exchange it for a society in which no one knows of parents, children,
and brothers and sisters who are not conventional. The Republic
would not be the work which it is if this kind of lover of justice
were not the most outstanding kind in the practically most impor-
tant sense of justice. Or to state this in a manner which is perhaps
more easily intelligible today, the Republic conveys the broadest
and deepest analysis of political idealism ever made.
That part of the Republic which deals with philosophy is the
most important part of the book. Accordingly it transmits the
answer to the question regarding justice to the extent to which that
answer is given in the Republic. The just man, we recall, is the man
in whom each part of the soul does its work well. But only in the
philosopher does the best part of the soul, reason, do its work well,
and this is not possible if the two other parts of the soul do not do
their work well also: the philosopher is necessarily by nature both
courageous and moderate (487a2-5). Only the philosopher can be
truly just. But the work with which the philosopher is concerned
above everything else is intrinsically attractive and in fact the most
pleasant work, regardless of what consequences it may entail
(583a ). Hence only in philosophy do justice and happiness coincide.
In other words, the philosopher is the only individual who is just
in the sense in which the city can be just: he is self-sufficient, truly
free, or his life is as little devoted to the service of other individuals
as the life of the city is devoted to the service of other cities. But
“ Theaetetus 176a5-8; cf. Laws 896e4-6.
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the philosopher in the good city is just also in the sense that he
serves his fellow men, his fellow citizens, his city, or that he obeys
the law. That is to say, the philosopher is just also in the sense in
which all members of the just city, and in a way all just members
of any city, regardless of whether they are philosophers or not, are
just. Yet justice in this second sense is not intrinsically attractive
or choiceworthy for its own sake but is good only with a view to its
consequences; or it is not noble but necessary: the philosopher
serves the city, even the good city, not, as he seeks the truth, from
natural inclination, from eros, but under compulsion (519e-520b;
540b4-5, el-2). Justice in the first sense may be said to be the
advantage of the stronger, i.e. of the most superior man, and justice
in the second sense the advantage of the weaker, i.e. of the inferior
men. It should not be necessary but it is necessary to add that
compulsion does not cease to be compulsion if it is self-compulsion.“
According to a notion of justice which is more common than the
one referred to in Socrates’ definition, justice consists in not harming
others; justice thus understood proves to be in the highest case
merely a concomitant of the philosopher’s greatness of soul. But
if justice is taken in the larger sense according to which it consists
in giving to each what is good for his soul, one must distinguish
between the cases in which such giving is intrinsically attractive
to the giver (these will be the cases of the potential philosophers)
and those in which it is merely a duty or compulsory. This distinc-
tion, incidentally, underlies the difference between the voluntary
conversations of Socrates (the conversations which he spontaneously
seeks) and the compulsory ones (those which he cannot with
propriety avoid). The clear distinction between the justice which
is choiceworthy for its own sake wholly regardless of its con-
sequences, and identical with philosophy, and the justice which is
merely necessary, and identical in the highest imaginable case with
the rule of the philosopher, is rendered possible by the abstraction
from eros which is characteristic of the Republic—an abstraction
which is also effective in the simile of the Cave in so far as that
simile presents the ascent from the cave to the light of the sun as
entirely compulsory (515c5-516al). For one might well say that
there is no reason why the philosopher should not engage in political
activity out of that kind of love of one’s own which is patriotism.”
“ Kant, Metaphysik der Sitten, Einleitung zur Tugendlehre I and II.
” Consider Apology of Socrates 30a3-4.
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By the end of the seventh book justice has come to sight fully.
Socrates has performed the duty laid upon him by Glaucon and
Adeimantus to show that justice is choiceworthy for its own sake,
regardless of its consequences, and therefore that it is unqualifiedly
preferable to injustice. Nevertheless the conversation continues, for
it seems that our clear grasp of justice does not include a clear
grasp of injustice but must be supplemented by a clear grasp of
the wholly unjust city and the wholly unjust man: only after we
have seen the wholly unjust city and the wholly unjust man with the
same clarity with which we have seen the wholly just city and the
wholly just man will we be able to judge whether we ought to follow
Socrates’ friend Thrasymachus who chooses injustice or Socrates
himself who chooses justice (545a2~b2; cf. 498c9-d1). This in turn
requires that the fiction of the possibility of the just city be main-
tained. As a matter of fact, the Republic never abandons the fiction
that the just city as a society of human beings, as distinguished
from a society of gods or sons of gods (Laws 739b-e), is possible.
When Socrates turns to the study of injustice, it even becomes
necessary for him to reaffirm this fiction with greater force than
ever before. The unjust city will be uglier, more condemnable, more
deserving indignation in proportion as the just city will be more
possible. Anger, indignation (Adeimantus’ favorite passion—cf.
426e4 with 366c6-7), spiritedness could never come into their own
if the just city were not possible. Or inversely, exaltation of spirited-
ness is the inevitable by-product of the utopia—of the belief that
the cessation of evils is possible—taken seriously; the belief that
all evil is due to human fault (cf. 379c5-7 and 617e4-5) makes man
infinitely responsible; it leads to the consequence that not only vice
but all evil is voluntary. But the possibility of the just city will
remain doubtful if the just city was never actual. Accordingly
_ Socrates asserts now that the just city was once actual. More pre-
cisely, he makes the Muses assert it or rather imply it. The assertion
that the just city was once actual, that it was actual in the begin-
ning is, as one might say, a mythical assertion which agrees with
the mythical premise that the best is the oldest. Socrates asserts
then through the mouth of the Muses that the good city was actual
in the beginning, prior to the emergence of evil, i.e. of the inferior
kind of city (547b): the inferior cities are decayed forms of the
good city, soiled fragments of the pure city which was entire;
hence, the nearer in time a kind of inferior city is to the just city,
the better it is, or vice versa. It is more proper to speak of the good
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THE CITY AND MAN
and inferior regimes than of the good and inferior cities (cf. the
transition from “cities” to “regimes” in 543c7ff.). According to
Socrates, there are five kinds of regime worth mentioning: (1) king-
ship or aristocracy, (2) timocracy, (3) oligarchy, (4) democracy,
and (5) tyranny. The descending order of regimes is modelled on
Hesiod’s descending order of the five races of men: the races of
gold, of silver, of bronze, the divine race of heroes, the race of iron
(546e-547a; Hesiod, Works and Days 106ff.). We see at once that
the Platonic equivalent of Hesiod’s divine race of heroes is democ-
racy. We shall have to. find the reason for this seemingly strange
correspondence.
The Republic is based on the assumption that there is a strict
parallel between the city and the soul. Accordingly Socrates asserts
that just as there are five kinds of regimes, there are five kinds of
characters of men. The distinction which for a short while was
popular in present-day political science between the authoritarian
and the democratic “personalities,” as corresponding to the distinc-
tion between authoritarian and democratic societies, was a dim and
crude reflection of Socrates’ distinction between the kingly or
aristocratic, the timocratic, the oligarchic, the democratic, and the
tyrannical souls or men, as corresponding to the aristocratic, timo-
cratic, oligarchic, democratic, and tyrannical regimes. In this con-
nection one might mention that in describing the regimes Socrates
does not speak of “ideologies” belonging to them; he is concerned
with the character of each kind of regime and with the end which
it manifestly and knowingly pursues as well as with the political
justification of the end in question in contradistinction to any trans-
political justification stemming from cosmology, theology, meta-
physics, philosophy of history, or myth. In his study of the inferior
regimes he examines in each case first the regime and then the
corresponding individual. He presents both the regime and the cor-
responding individual as coming into being out of the preceding
one. We shall consider here only his account of democracy because
of its crucial importance for the argument of the Republic. Democ-
racy arises from oligarchy which in its turn arises from timocracy,
the rule of insufficiently music warriors who are characterized by
the supremacy of spiritedness. Oligarchy is the first regime in which
desire is supreme. In oligarchy the ruling desire is that for wealth
or money or unlimited acquisitiveness. The oligarchic man is thrifty
and industrious, controls all desires other than the desire for money,
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lacks education and possesses a superficial honesty derivative from
the crudest self-interest. Oligarchy gives to each the unqualified
right to dispose of his property as he sees fit. It thus renders inevi-
table the emergence of “drones,” i.e. of members of the ruling class
who are either burdened with debt or already bankrupt and hence
disfranchised—of beggars who hanker after their squandered for-
tunes and hope to restore their fortunes and political power through
a change of regime. Besides, the correct oligarchs themselves, being
both rich and unconcerned with virtue and honor, render them-
selves and especially their sons fat, spoiled, and soft. They thus
become despised by the lean and tough poor. Democracy comes
into being when the poor, having become aware of their superiority
to the rich and perhaps led by some drones who act as traitors to
their class and possess skills which ordinarily only members of a
ruling class possess, at an opportune moment make themselves
masters of the city by defeating the rich, killing and exiling some of
them and permitting the rest to live with them in possession of full
citizen rights. Democracy itself is characterized by freedom which
includes the right to say and do whatever one wishes: everyone can
follow the way of life which pleases him most. Hence democracy
is the regime which fosters the greatest variety: every way of life,
every regime can be found in it. Hence, we must understand,
democracy is the only regime other than the best in which the
philosopher can lead his peculiar way of life without being dis-
turbed: it is for this reason that with some exaggeration one can
compare democracy to Hesiod’s age of the divine race of heroes
which comes closer to the golden age than any other. Plato himself
called the Athenian democracy, looking back on it from the rule
of the Thirty Tyrants, “golden” (Seventh Letter 324d7-8). Since
democracy, in contradistinction to the three other bad regimes, is
both bad and permissive, it is that regime in which the frank quest
for the best regime is at home: the action of the Republic takes
place under a democracy. Certainly in a democracy the citizen who
is a philosopher is under no compulsion to participate in political
life or to hold office. One is thus led to wonder why Socrates did
not assign to democracy the highest place among the inferior
regimes or rather the highest place simply, seeing that the best
regime is not possible. One could say that he showed his preference
for democracy by deed: by spending his whole life in demo-
cratic Athens, by fighting for her in her wars and by dying in
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obedience to her laws. However this may be, he surely did not
prefer democracy to all.other regimes in speech: The reason is that,
being a just man in more than one sense, he thought of the well-
being not merely of the philosophers but of the non-philosophers as
well, and he held that democracy is not designed for inducing the
non-philosophers to attempt to become as good as they possibly can,
for the end of democracy is not virtue but freedom, i.e. the freedom
to live either nobly or basely according to one’s liking. Therefore
he assigns to democracy a rank even lower than to oligarchy since
oligarchy requires some kind of restraint whereas democracy, as
he presents it, abhors every kind of restraint. One could say that,
adapting himself to his subject matter, he abandons all restraint
when speaking of the regime which loathes restraint. In a democ-
racy, he asserts, no one is compelled to rule or to be ruled, if he
does not like it; he can live at peace while his city is at war; sen-
tence to capital punishment does not have the slightest consequence
for the condemned man: he is not even jailed; the order of rulers
and ruled is completely reversed: the father behaves as if he were a
boy and the son neither respects nor fears the father, the teacher
fears his pupils while the pupils pay no attention to the teacher, and
there is complete equality of the sexes; even horses and donkeys
no longer step aside when encountering human beings. Plato writes
as if the Athenian democracy had not carried out Socrates’ execu-
tion, and Socrates speaks as if the Athenian democracy had not
engaged in an orgy of bloody persecution of guilty and innocent
alike when the Hermes statues were mutilated at the beginning of
the Sicilian expedition." Socrates’ exaggeration of the licentious
mildness of classical democracy is matched by an almost equally
strong exaggeration of the intemperance of democratic man. He
could indeed not avoid the latter exaggeration if he did not wish to
deviate from the procedure which he follows in his discussion of the
inferior regimes. That procedure—a consequence of the parallel
between the city and the individual—consists in understanding the
man corresponding to an inferior regime as the son of a father
corresponding to the preceding regime. Hence the democratic man
comes to sight as the son of an oligarchic father, as the degenerate
son of a wealthy father who is concerned with nothing but making
money: the democratic man is a drone, the fat, soft, and prodigal
" Thucydides VI 27-29, 53-61.
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playboy, the Lotus-eater who, assigning a kind of equality to equal
and unequal things, lives one day in complete surrender to the
lowest desires and the next day ascetically, or who according to
Marx's ideal “goes hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon,
raises cattle in the evening, devotes himself to philosophy after
dinner,”*? 4.¢. does at all times what he happens to like; the demo-
cratic man is not the lean, tough and thrifty peasant or craftsman
who has a single job (cf. 564c9-S65b1, 575c). Socrates’ deliberately
exaggerated blame of democracy becomes intelligible to some extent
once one considers its immediate addressee, the austere Adeimantus,
who is not a friend of laughter and who had been the addressee of
the austere discussion of poetry in the section on the education
of the warriors: by his exaggerated blame of democracy Socrates
lends words to Adeimantus’ “dream” of democracy (cf. 563d2 with
389a7). One must also not forget that the sanguine account of the
multitude, which was provisionally required in order to prove the
harmony between the city and philosophy, is in need of being
redressed; the exaggerated blame of democracy reminds us again
of the disharmony between philosophy and the people.
After Socrates has brought to light the entirely unjust regime
and the entirely unjust man and then compared the life of the
entirely unjust man with that of the perfectly just man, it becomes
clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that justice is preferable to
injustice. Nevertheless the conversation continues. Socrates suddenly
returns to the subject of poetry, a subject which had already been
discussed at great length when the education of the warriors was
being considered. We must try to understand this apparently un-
motivated return. In an explicit digression from the discussion of
tyranny, Socrates had noted that the poets praise tyrants and are
honored by tyrants (and also by democracy) whereas they are not
honored by the three better regimes (568a8-d4). Tyranny and
democracy are characterized by the surrender to the sensual desires,
including the most lawless ones. The tyrant is Eros incarnate. And
the poets sing the praise of Eros. They pay very great attention and
homage precisely to that phenomenon from which Socrates abstracts
in the Republic to the best of his powers. The poets therefore foster
injustice. So does Thrasymachus. Therefore, just as in spite of this
Socrates could become a friend of Thrasymachus, there is no reason
“ Die deutsche Ideologie (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1955) 30.
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THE CITY AND MAN
why he could not be a friend of the poets and especially of Homer.
Perhaps Socrates needs the poets in order to restore, on another
occasion, the dignity of eros: the Banquet, the only Platonic dia-
logue in which Socrates is shown to converse with poets, is devoted
entirely to the praise of eros.
When using the fate of Thrasymachus in the Republic as a key
to the truth about poetry, we are mindful of the kinship between
rhetoric and poetry as indicated in the Gorgias (502b1-d9). But we
must not overlook the difference between rhetoric and poetry. There
are two kinds of rhetoric, the erotic rhetoric described in the Phae-
drus, of which Socrates was a master and which is surely not rep-
resented by Thrasymachus, and the other kind which is represented
by Thrasymachus. That other kind consists of three forms: forensic,
deliberative, and epideictic. The Apology of Socrates is a piece of
forensic rhetoric, while in the Menexenus Socrates plays with epi-
deictic rhetoric. Socrates does not engage in deliberative rhetoric,
i.e. in political rhetoric proper. The closest approximation to delib-
erative rhetoric in the Corpus Platonicum would seem to be Pau-
sanias’ speech in the Banquet in which the speaker proposes a
change, favorable to lovers, in the Athenian law regarding eros.
The foundation for the return to poetry in the tenth book was
laid at the very beginning of the discussion of the inferior regimes
and the inferior souls. The transition from the best regime to the
inferior regimes was explicitly ascribed to the Muses speaking
“tragically,” and the transition from the best man to the inferior men
has in fact a slightly “comical” character (545d7-e3, 549c2-e2):
poetry takes the lead when the descent from the highest theme—
justice understood as philosophy—begins. The return to poetry,
which is preceded by the account of the inferior regimes and the
inferior souls, is followed by a discussion of “the greatest rewards
for virtue,” i.e. the rewards not inherent in justice or philosophy as
such (608c, 614a). The second discussion of poetry constitutes the.
center of that part of the Republic in which the conversation
descends from the highest theme. This cannot be surprising, for
philosophy as quest for the truth is the highest activity of man and
poetry is not concerned with the truth.
In the first discussion of poetry, which preceded by a long time
the introduction of philosophy as a theme, poetry's unconcern with
the truth was its chief recommendation, for at that time it was
untruth that was needed (377al-6). The most excellent poets were
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expelled from the city, not because they teach untruth but because
they teach the wrong kind of untruth. But in the meantime it has
become clear that only the life of the philosophizing man in so far
as he philosophizes is the just life, and that life, so far from needing
untruth, utterly rejects it (485c3-d5). The progress from the city,
even the best city, to the philosopher requires, it seems, a progress
from the qualified acceptance of poetry to its unqualified rejection.
In the light of philosophy poetry reveals itself as the imitation
of imitations of the truth, #.e. of the ideas. The contemplation of the
ideas is the activity of the philosopher, the imitation of the ideas
is the activity of the ordinary artisan, and the imitation of the works
of artisans is the activity of the poets and other “imitative” artisans.
To begin with, Socrates presents the order of rank in these terms:
the maker of the ideas (e.g. of the idea of the bed) is the god, the
maker of the imitation (of the bed which can be used) is the
artisan, and the maker of the imitation of the imitation (of the
painting of a bed) is the imitative artisan. In the repetition he states
the order of rank in these terms: first the user, then the artisan, and
finally the imitative artisan. The idea of the bed, we shall then say,
resides in the user who determines the “form” of the bed with a
view to the end for which it is to be used. The user is then the one
who possesses the highest or most authoritative knowledge: the
highest knowledge is not that of any artisan as such at all; the poet
who stands at the opposite pole from the user does not possess any
knowledge, not even right opinion (601c6-602b11). The preference
given to the arts proper which are concerned with the useful rather
than with a certain kind of the beautifully pleasant (389e12-390a5)
is in agreement with the notion that the good city is a city of
artisans or with the abstraction from eros. Nor shall we overlook the
fact that the order of rank referred to in the first half of the tenth
book abstracts from the warriors: it looks as if the healthy city,
which did not know warriors or imitative artisans (373b5-7), were
to be restored with its natural head—the philosophers—added to it.
In order to understand Socrates’ seemingly outrageous judgment on
poetry, one must first identify the artisans whose work the poet
imitates. The poets’ themes are above all human beings as referred
to virtue and vice; the poets see the human things in the light of
virtue; but the virtue toward which they look is an imperfect and
even distorted image of virtue (598el-2, 599c6-d3, 600e4-5). The
artisan whom the poet imitates is the non-philosophic legislator who
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is himself an imperfect imitator of virtue (cf. 5015 and 514b4-
515a3). In particular, justice as understood by the city is necessarily
the work of the legislator, for ‘the just as understood by the city is
the legal. No one expressed Socrates’ suggestion more clearly than
Nietzsche who said that “the poets were always the valets of some
morality.”5* But according to the French saying, for a valet there
is no hero: are the poets (at least those who are not entirely stupid)
not aware of the secret weaknesses of their heroes? This is indeed
the case according to Socrates. The poets bring to light, for instance,
the full force of the grief which a man feels for the loss of someone
dear to him—of a feeling to which a respectable man would not
give adequate utterance except when he is alone because its ade-
quate utterance in the presence of others is not becoming and
lawful: the poets bring to light that in our nature which the law
forcibly restrains (603e3-604b8, 606a3-607a9 ). The poets as spokes-
men of the passions oppose the legislator as spokesman of reason.
Yet the non-philosophic legislator is not unqualifiedly the spokesman
of reason; his laws are very far from being simply the dictates of
reason. The poets have a broader view of human life as the conflict
between passion and reason (390d1-6) than do the legislators; they
show the limitations of law. But if this is so, if the poets are perhaps
the men who understand best the nature of the passions which the
law should restrain, they are very far from being merely the servants
of the legislators but also the men from whom the prudent legislator
will learn. The genuine “quarrel between philosophy and poetry”
(607b5-6) concerns, from the philosopher’s point of view, not the
worth of poetry as such, but the order of rank of philosophy and
poetry. According to Socrates, poetry is legitimate only as ministerial
to the “user” par excellence, to the king (597e7) who is the phi-
losopher, and not as autonomous. For autonomous poetry presents
human life as autonomous, i.e. not as directed toward the philo-
sophic life, and it therefore never presents the philosophic life
except in its distortion by comedy; hence autonomous poetry
(regardless of whether it is dramatic or not) is necessarily either
tragedy or comedy (or some mixture of both) since the non-
philosophic life has either no way out of its fundamental difficulty
or else only an inept one. But ministerial poetry presents the non-
philosophic life as ministerial to the philosophic life and therefore,
" The Gay Science nr. 1.
136
sis,
ON PLATO’S REPUBLIC
above all, the philosophic life itself (cf. 604e). The greatest example
of ministerial poetry is the Platonic dialogue.
The Republic ends with a discussion of the greatest rewards for
justice and the greatest punishments for injustice. The discussion
consists of three parts: (1) proof of the immortality of the soul;
(2) the divine and human rewards and punishments while man
is alive; (3) the rewards and punishments after death. The central
part is silent about philosophy: rewards for justice and punishments
for injustice during life are needed for the non-philosophers whose
justice does not have the intrinsic attractiveness which the justice
peculiar to the philosophers has. No one who has understood the
dual meaning of justice can fail to see the necessity of Socrates’
“Philistine” utterance on the earthly rewards which the just, gener-
ally speaking, receive (613d, c4). Socrates, who knew Glaucon, is a
better judge of what is good for Glaucon than any reader of the
Republic, and surely than the modern “idealists” who shudder in a
thoroughly unmanly way at the thought that men who are pillars
of a stable society through their uprightness, which indeed must
not be entirely divorced from ability or artfulness, are likely to be
rewarded by their society. This thought is an indispensable correc-
tive to Glaucon’s exaggerated statement in his long speech about the
extreme sufferings of the genuinely just man: Glaucon could not
have known what a genuinely just man is. It cannot be the duty
of a genuinely just man like Socrates to drive weaker men to
despair of the possibility of some order and decency in human
affairs, and least of all those who, by virtue of their inclinations,
their descent, and their abilities, may have some public respon-
sibility. For Glaucon it is more than enough that he will remember
for the rest of his days and perhaps transmit to others the many
grand and perplexing sights which Socrates has conjured for his
benefit in that memorable night in the Piraeus. The account of the
rewards and punishments after death is given in the form of a
myth. The myth is not baseless since it is based on a proof of the
immortality of the souls. The soul cannot be immortal if it is com-
posed of many things unless the composition is most perfect. But
the soul as we know it from our experience lacks that perfect
harmony. In order to find out the truth, one would have to recover
by reasoning the original or true nature of the soul (611b-612a).
This reasoning is not achieved in the Republic. That is to say, Soc-
rates proves the immortality of the soul without having brought to
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THE CITY AND MAN
light the nature of the soul. The situation at the end of the Republic
corresponds precisely to the situation at the end of the first book,
where Socrates makes clear that he has proved that justice is salu-
tary without knowing the What or nature. of justice. The discussion
following the first book does bring to light the nature of justice as
the right order of the soul, yet how can one know the right order
of the soul if one does not know the nature of the soul? Let us
remember here again the fact that the parallel between soul and
city, which is the premise of the doctrine of the soul stated in the
Republic, is evidently questionable and even untenable. The Repub-
lic cannot bring to light the nature of the soul because it abstracts
from the body and from eros; by abstracting from the body and
eros, the Republic in fact abstracts from the soul; the Republic
abstracts from nature; this abstraction is necessary if justice as full
dedication to the common good of a particular city is to be praised
as choiceworthy for its own sake; and why this praise is necessary,
should not be in need of an argument. If we are concerned with
finding out precisely what justice is, we must take “another longer
way around” in our study of the soul than the way which is taken
in the Republic (504b; cf. 506d). This does not mean that what we
learn from the Republic about justice is not true or is altogether
provisional. The first book surely does not teach what justice is, and
yet by presenting Socrates’ taming of Thrasymachus as an act of
justice, it lets us see justice. The teaching of the Republic regard-
ing justice can be true although it is not complete, in so far as the
nature of justice depends decisively on the nature of the city—for
even the trans-political cannot be understood as such except if the
city is understood—and the city is completely intelligible because
its limits can be made perfectly manifest: to see these limits, one
need not have answered the question regarding the whole; it is
sufficient for the purpose to have raised the question regarding the
whole. The Republic then indeed makes clear what justice is. As
Cicero has observed, the Republic does not bring to light the best
possible regime but rather the nature of political things**—the
nature of the city. Socrates makes clear in the Republic of what
character the city would have to be in order to-satisfy the highest
need of man. By letting us see that the city constructed in accord-
ance with this requirement is not possible, he lets us see the
essential limits, the nature, of the city.
“ De republica II 52.
138
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Chapter IIT
ON THUCYDIDES’ WAR OF
THE PELOPONNESIANS AND
THE ATHENIANS
1. Political Philosophy and Political History
In turning from Aristotle and Plato to Thucydides, we seem to enter
an entirely different world. This is no longer the world of political
philosophy, of the quest for the best regime which is possible, al-
though it never was, is, or will be actual, for the shining and pure
temple built on a noble elevation, far away from vulgar clamor and
everything else disharmonious. Seen in the light of the best polity,
of the truly just order, of justice or philosophy, political life or
political greatness loses much, if not all, of its charm; only the
charm of the greatness of the founder and legislator seems to sur-
vive the severest of all tests. When we open Thucydides’ pages, we
become at once immersed in political life at its most intense, in
bloody war both foreign and civil, in life and death struggles.
Thucydides sees political life in its own light; he does not transcend
it; he does not stand above the turmoil but in the midst of it; he
takes seriously political life as it is; he knows only of actual cities,
statesmen, commanders of armies and navies, citizens and dema-
gogues as distinguished from founders and legislators; he presents
to us political life in its harsh grandeur, ruggedness, and even
squalor. It suffices to remember how Socrates on the one hand and
Thucydides on the other speak of Themistocles and Pericles, and
how Plato on the one hand and Thucydides on the other present
Nicias. Thucydides sympathizes and makes us sympathize with po-
litical greatness as displayed in fighting for freedom and in the
founding, ruling, and expanding of empires. The loudest event that
takes place in the Platonic dialogues is the drunken Alcibiades’
irruption into a banquet of his friends. Thucydides lets us hear the
139
THE CITY AND MAN
delirious hopes at the beginning of the Sicilian expedition and the
indescribable anguish in the quarries of Syracuse. He looks at polit-
ical things not only in the same direction as the citizen or statesman
but also within the same horizon. And yet he is not simply a polit-
ical man. We indicate the difference between Thucydides and the
political man as such by calling Thucydides, as tradition bids us do,
a historian.
However profound the difference between Plato and Thucydides
may be, their teachings are not necessarily incompatible; they may
supplement one another. Thucydides’ theme is the greatest war
known to him, the greatest “motion.” The best city described in the
Republic (and in the Politics) is at rest. But in the sequel to the
Republic Socrates expresses the desire to see the best city “in mo-
tion,” i.e. at war; “the best city in motion” is the necessary sequel
to the speech on the best city. Socrates feels unable to praise
properly, to present properly the best city in motion. The philoso-
pher’s speech on the best city requires a supplement which the
philosopher cannot give. The description of the best city which
avoids everything accidental deals with a nameless city and name-
less men living in an indeterminate place and at an indeterminate
time (cf. Republic 499c8-d1). Yet a war can only be a war between
this particular city and other particular cities, under these or these
leaders, at this or that time. Socrates seems to call for the assistance
of a man like Thucydides who could supplement political philoso-
phy or complete it. As it happens, Critias, one of Socrates’ three
interlocutors, had heard as a child from his very old grandfather
who had heard it from his father who had heard it from his kinsman
and close friend Solon who had heard it from an Egyptian priest
that in very ancient times Athens, being then a supremely excellent
city, waged war against Atlantis, an unbelievably large island in
the west; the people of. Atlantis, led by their kings—men of mar-
vellously great power—attempted to enslave Athens and the rest
of Greece and all countries bordering on the Mediterranean; but
Athens, partly as leader of the Greeks and partly acting alone when
‘the others had deserted her, defeated the assailants and thus saved
all Mediterranean peoples from enslavement. It is this truthful
speech, not a fictitious myth (Timaeus 26e4-5), which is to be the
supplement to Socrates’ account of the best city. It reminds of
'*Timaeus 19b3-d2, 20b3.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Thucydides’ work not only because it is an account of “the greatest
motion” but because the Atlantic war reminds of the Peloponnesian
war or more precisely of the Sicilian part of that war; the Atlantic
war reminds of the Sicilian expedition while surpassing it infinitely.
It surpasses it in the first place by the gigantic size both of the
island in the west and of its armed host. It surpasses it above all by
its glory: whereas the Athenians’ unjust attack on the island in the
west ended in ignominious defeat, the Athenians’ just defense of all
Greece and everything near to Greece against the unjustly attacking
men of the island in the west ended in most glorious victory. The
victory over Atlantis by far surpasses in magnitude and in glory the
combined actual victory in the Persian war and the hoped-for vic-
tory in the Sicilian expedition. It looks as if some Critias had at-
tempted to surpass Critias’ competitor Alcibiades by a speech infi-
nitely surpassing Alcibiades’ deeds and plans which in themselves
were already almost incredible. This however seems only to confirm
the first impression of the relation between Plato and Thucydides:
the Peloponnesian war was waged by an Athens which was in-
formed by a regime regarded as defective by both Thucydides and
Plato and which was known to them through their seeing it; the
Atlantic war was waged by an Athens which was informed by a
superlatively good regime and which is known only through the
report of an Egyptian priest. Nevertheless there is one point of no
small importance in which the two thinkers agree. Plato did not
permit his Critias to describe Athens’ superlative glory: he did not
wish to allow an Athenian to praise Athens. Thucydides, the his-
torian, was indeed compelled to permit his Pericles to praise Athens.
But he did his best to prevent Pericles’ Funeral Speech from being
mistaken for his own praise of Athens.
Whichever way we turn, we seem to be compelled to fall back
on the trite assertion that Thucydides is distinguished from Plato
by the fact that he is a historian. To understand him as a historian
is particularly easy for us, the sons of the age of historicism. There
even seems to be a particularly close kinship between the “scientific
history” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Thucydides’
thought; as a matter of fact, Thucydides has been called a “scien-
tific historian.” But the differences between Thucydides and the sci-
entific historians are immense. In the first place, Thucydides limits
himself severely to military and diplomatic history and at most to
political history; while he does not ignore the “economic.factor,” he
141
THE CITY AND MAN
says amazingly little about it; he says next to nothing regarding cul-
tural, religious, or intellectual history. Secondly, his work is meant
to be a possession for all times, whereas the works of the scientific
historians do not seriously claim to be “definitive.” Thirdly, Thucy-
dides does not merely narrate and explain actions and quote official
documents but he inserts speeches, composed by him, of the actors.
Yet Thucydides may be a historian without being a historian in the
modern sense. What then is a historian in the pre-modern sense? Ac-
cording to Aristotle, the historian presents what has happened where-
as the poet presents the kind of things that might happen: “therefore
poetry is more philosophic and more serious than history, for poetry
states rather the universals, history however states the singulars.”?
Poetry is between history and philosophy: history and philosophy
stand at opposite poles; history is simply unphilosophic or pre-philo-
sophic; it deals with individuals (individual human beings, individual
cities, individual kingdoms or empires, individual confederations);
whereas philosophy deals with the species as species, history does not
even let us see the species in the individuals and through them as
poetry does. Philosophy, for instance, deals with war as such, or the
city as such, whereas Thucydides deals only with the war between
the Peloponnesians and the Athenians. Aristotle thus shows im-
plicitly that there is no opposition between philosophy and history,
as little as there is between philosophy and poetry. But the question
is whether Thucydides is a historian in Aristotle's sense. Occasion-
ally Thucydides seems to suggest that he is a historian in that sense.
The notion of history implied in the passage in question (I 97.2)
may be stated as follows: it is desirable and even necessary that we
should have at our disposal a continuous, reliable, and clear account
of what men and cities did and suffered at all times, the account of
each time being written by a contemporary. Yet Thucydides sug-
gests this notion of history in order to explain or to excuse a seem-
ingly unnecessary digression from his work; he does not suggest this
notion when stating the reason why he wrote his work. Seen within
the context of his whole work, that suggestion reads like a rejection
of the view of history which it conveys. The reason why he rejects
that view is not difficult to discern. When he explains why he wrote
his account of the Peloponnesian war, he stresses the unique im-
portance of that event. The vulgar notion, pre-modern or modern,
* Poetics 1451a36-b]1.
142
Se Mn BE bs oan ene te
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
of history does not make sufficient allowance for the difference be-
tween the important and the unimportant.
Above all, Thucydides surely lets us see the universal in the indi-
vidual event which he narrates and through it: it is for this reason
that his work is meant to be a possession for all times. On the basis
of the Aristotelian remark one is therefore compelled to say that
Thucydides is not a historian simply but a historian-poet; he does
in the element of prose what the poets do in the element of poetry.
Yet he is as little a historian-poet as he is a historian simply. While
he states explicitly what he regards as his task, he does not state
explicitly what he regards as the task of the historian. As a matter
of fact, in contradistinction to Herodotus he never speaks of “his-
tory”; this fact alone could make one hesitate to call him a historian.
He does state what he regards as the characteristic of the poets:
the poets present things as bigger and grander than they are (J 21.1
and 10.1) whereas he presents them exactly as they are. The de-
cisive reason why we must abandon the attempt to understand
Thucydides in the light of the Aristotelian distinction is that that
distinction presupposes philosophy and we have no right to assume
that philosophy is present in Thucydides or for Thucydides. Perhaps
Thucydides’ “quest for the truth” (I 20.3) antedates essentially, i.e.
not temporally, the distinction between history and philosophy. His
work is meant to be a possession for all times because it enables
those who will read it in future times to know the truth not only
regarding the past, i.e. the Peloponnesian war and “the old things”
preceding it (cf. I 1.3 beg.), but regarding their own times as well
(I 22.4); the toil which Thucydides has invested in discovering the
truth about the Peloponnesian war (and “the old things”) will |
dispense those readers from investing a comparable toil in under-
standing the events of their times; his work presents the results
of a kind of inquiry (or of “history”) which makes that kind of
inquiry superfluous. If we may use the Aristotelian distinction once
more, Thucydides has discovered in the “singulars” of his time (and
of “the old things”) the “universal.” It is not altogether misleading
to refer to the Platonic parallel: Plato too can be said to have dis-
covered in a singular event—in the singular life of Socrates—the
universal and thus to have become able to present the universal
through presenting a singular.
At the time when the tradition stemming from Aristotle was
being cecriyely shaken, Hobbes turned from Aristotle to Thucydi-
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THE CITY AND MAN
des. He too understood Thucydides as a historian as distinguished
from a philosopher. But he understood the relation between the
historian and the philosopher differently than did Aristotle. The
philosopher’s part is “the open conveyance of precepts” whereas
history is “merely narrative.” History too then conveys precepts;
to take the most important example, according to Hobbes, Thu-
cydides’ work teaches the superiority of monarchy to any other form
of government but especially to democracy. Yet at any rate in a
good history “the narrative doth secretly instruct the reader, and
more effectually than can possibly be done by precept.” To support
his assertion that Thucydides instructs his readers secretly, Hobbes
adduces the judgments of Justus Lipsius and, above all, of Mar-
cellinus: “Marcellinus saith, he was obscure on purpose; that the
common people might not understand him. And not unlikely; for a
wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men),
that wise men only should be able to commend him.” Since Thu-
cydides is “the most politic historiographer that ever writ,” his
reader “may from the narrations draw out lessons to himself”:
Thucydides does not draw out the lessons. Hobbes sees then the
characteristic difference between the historian (or at any rate the
most politic historian) and the philosopher in the fact that the
historian presents the universals silently. He takes it for granted that
the speeches which Thucydides has inserted do not convey the
instruction in question; the speeches are “of the contexture of the
nartative.”* This implies that no sentiment expressed in a speech of a
Thucydidean character can be as such ascribed to Thucydides. This
iron rule is not qualified but merely rendered more precise by the
following corollary: the fact that a Thucydidean character expresses
a given view proves that that view was known to Thucydides; it
may therefore be used for completing a view stated by Thucydides
himself if the former view is evidently implied in the latter view.
Far from impairing Thucydides’ reticence, the speeches only in-
crease it. Since he is so reticent regarding the universals and the
speeches are so rich in pithily and forcefully expressed statements
regarding them, he as it were seduces the readers into taking these
statements as expressing his own view. The temptation becomes
almost irresistible when the speakers express views which no intel-
ligent or decent man seems able to gainsay.
*Hobbes, English Works (ed. Molesworth) VII, pp. viii, xvi-xvii, xxii,
xxix, and xxxii. Cf. Opera Latina (ed. Molesworth) I, pp. lxxxviii and xiii-xiv.
14h
es
F
Bp
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
If Thucydides is as reticent as Hobbes's suggestive remarks may
induce us to think, it seems to be well-nigh impossible to establish
Thucydides’ teaching with any degree of certainty. Hobbes held
that Thucydides, “as he was of regal descent, so he best approved
of the regal government.”* Hardly anyone living today would agree
with this judgment. Today not a few people believe that Thucydi-
des, far from being simply opposed to democracy, was in sympathy
with the imperialism which went with the Athenian democracy or
that he believed in “power politics”; accordingly they hold that
Thucydides’ comprehensive view is stated by the Athenians in their
dialogue with the Melians. This interpretation is indeed rendered
possible by Thucydides’ reticence, by his failure to pass judgment
on that dialogue. Yet the same silence would justify also the oppo-
site interpretation. The contemporary interpreters of Thucydides
who are perceptive note the presence in his thought of that which
transcends “power politics,” of what one may call the human or the
humane. But if one addresses to Thucydides the question of how
the power political and the humane are reconciled with one another,
one receives no answer from him.5
After one has recovered from one’s first impression, one is
amazed to see how many and how important judgments Thucydides
makes explicitly, in his own name. These judgments form the only
legitimate starting point for the understanding of his teaching.
2. The Case for Sparta: Moderation and the Divine Law
Thucydides’ first explicit judgment is to the effect that the war
between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians was greater than
the earlier wars. In order to prove this assertion, he must show “the
weakness of the ancients.” He thus deprives antiquity of the
splendor which, it seems, was the work of the poets who celebrated
antiquity. While following the way from ancient weakness to present
strength, he sketches the emergence of the protagonists of the
present war, of Athens and Sparta. Because of the poverty of the
soil of their country which therefore was not desired by others,
the Athenians were left in peace and thus their city grew to some
greatness much earlier than Sparta. The Athenians were the first
who, relaxing the ancient, barbaric style of life, turned toward
‘English Works VIII, p. xvii.
*Karl Reinhardt, Vermachtnis der Antike (Gottingen, 1960) 216-217.
145
THE CITY AND MAN
_ rather luxurious practices. Yet the Spartans were the first to intro-
' duce a style of life which is peculiarly Greek, a style of republican
simplicity and equality, a mean between barbaric penury and bar-
baric pomp. Accordingly, Sparta has enjoyed order and freedom
from a very old time without interruption; her regime has remained
the same during the preceding 400 years; her regime is then the
oldest of the present Greek regimes; her regime, i.e. not war, was
and is the source of her outstanding power. Sparta liberated Greece
from the rule of tyrants and, above all, she was the leader of the
Greeks in the Persian war. Sparta’s power is greater than her “looks”
might seem to bear out: hers is a solid power. The connection
between Sparta’s power and her regime to which Thucydides draws
our attention near the beginning of his book is brought out most
clearly in what he says about Sparta near the end: the Spartans,
above all others of whom Thucydides had ‘any direct knowledge,
succeeded in being prosperous and moderate at the same time.
The Athenians became moderate and established a moderate
regime induced by disaster, when they were cast down by fright.
The Spartans on the other hand were moderate also in prosperity
thanks to their stable and moderate regime which bred moderation.*
Thucydides’ taste is the same as that of Plato and Aristotle.
Someone might say that Sparta’s superiority with regard to
republican virtue, political stability, and moderation is only the
reverse side of her inferiority in other, perhaps more important
respects, for instance regarding imperial greatness and brilliance.
This objection receives apparent support from Thucydides’ final
judgment on the manner of the two antagonists: the Athenians were
militarily superior to the Spartans because they were quick and
enterprising whereas the Spartans were slow and unwilling to dare
(VIII 96.5). Considering the kinship between slowness, caution,
circumspection, and moderation,’ the judgment could be thought to
imply that moderation is a defect in war. But even in this respect
moderation is not unqualifiedly a defect; after all, the Spartans won
the war. However this may be, we surely: must find out what Thu-
cydides thinks of the status of moderation simply.
‘Thucydides reveals his taste most explicitly and most compre-
hensively in his reflections on how the civil wars which occurred in
*T 2.5-6, 6.3-5, 10.2-3, 13.1, 15.2, 18.1-2, VIII 1, 24.4, 96-97.
"Plato, Charmides 159bff.
146
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,
THUCYDIDES PELOFONNESIAN WAR
the Greek cities during the Peloponnesian war affected the manners
of judging and .of acting (III 82-83). These manners became al-
together depraved. The depravation showed itself in the abandon-
ment of the customary praising and blaming as well as of ‘the
ways of acting. It consisted in the complete triumph
of the spirit of daring and its kin over that of moderation and its
kin, Men came to praise the most reckless daring, quickness, anger,
revenge, distiust, secrecy, and fraud, and to blame moderation,
caution, trust, good-naturedness, open and frank dealings; what was
called manliness took the place of moderation. The decay in speech
and in deed of moderation was accompanied by the decay of respect
for law, not only for the laws laid down by men but for the divine
law as well,® and for right and the benefit of the city as distin-
guished from the benefit of one’s faction (be it the many or the
few). Moderation, justice, and piety belong together; their enemy
calls itself daring and shrewdness or intelligence. While not every
civil war is a consequence of foreign war and not every foreign
war culminates in civil war, there is nevertheless a kinship between
war and civil war: both cities and individuals have better thoughts
in peace and when things go well than in war; war is a violent
teacher, i.e. a teacher of violence by violence, which strengthens
the angry passions not indeed of all men but of most; war is an
intermediate stage between peace and civil war. This means that
moderation, justice, and piety and the praise of these ways of con-
duct are at home in the city at peace rather than in the city at war.
From all this it would seem to follow that the fully developed
contrast between Sparta and Athens is that between the city at
peace and the city in the grip of civil war. It would seem to follow
more particularly that a good regime (like the Spartan) is averse
to war and will avoid every war which can be avoided. Above all,
it would seem to follow that even if moderation should be a handi-
cap in war, its superiority to its opposite will not become doubtful.
The depravation caused by civil war, that man-made plague,
*The divine law is preceded in the context (III 82.6) by kinship (the
family) and the established laws (the city); the order appears to be one of
ascent. Here Thucydides no longer speaks of the change in the meaning of
words (ibid. 4-5); he does not mean that in civil war kinship, etc., are no
longer called kinship, etc., but that they are no longer held in high esteem.
As a consequence, he does not tell us what piety (ibid. 8) is called after it has
fallen into contempt. a
L47
THE CITY AND MAN
resembles the depravation caused by the plague proper. The over-
whelming force of the plague, the universal insecurity brought about
general lawlessness, the surrender to the pleasures of the moment.
Neither fear of the gods or piety nor human law restrained anyone.
The distinction between the pleasant and the noble collapsed: the
noble was sacrificed to the pleasant (II 52.3, 53). Depravation is,
above all, the destruction of moderation.
Thucydides’ favorable judgment on Sparta—a judgment whose
major premise is the goodness of moderation, justice, and piety—is
reflected in some of the speeches which he has inserted. The judg-
ments of his speakers cannot be identical with his own since the
speakers are not simply concerned with the truth but with the
interests of their city or faction. The Corinthian’s first speech in
Sparta (I 68-71) is meant to incite the Spartans to go to war at
once against Athens. In order to show the Spartans the magnitude
of the danger threatening them at the hands of the Athenians and
also to explain the Spartans’ seeming inability to comprehend that
danger, they contrast the Spartan character with the Athenian. The
characteristic Spartan qualities are said to be these: moderation,
tranquillity or restfulness, satisfaction with what they possess, hence
clinging to immutable laws and aversion to being away from home,
old-fashionedness, reliability, and trust among themselves coupled
with distrust of foreigners and hence neglect, even betrayal, of their
allies, hesitation, slowness, lack of inventiveness, no trust even in
the safest calculations, apprehensiveness. The Athenian manner
is the opposite: always restless, innovating, quick to invent and to
execute, daring beyond their power, full of hope, and so on. The
Spartans will have to change their manners and to assimilate them-
selves to the Athenians in order to overcome the danger. The Athe-
nians who reply to the Corinthians (I 72-78) wish to induce the
Spartans to remain at rest and to deliberate slowly. They wish then
to induce the Spartans to continue in their manner which proved to
be so conducive to Athens’ increase. Accordingly they must show
that the difference between Athens and Sparta is not as radical, as
dangerous to Sparta, as the Corinthians had asserted. They do this
partly by being silent about that difference and partly by stating
generally that the Athenian manner is not different from the manner
common to all men (and hence also to the Spartans): the difference
is due only to the difference of circumstances. They are almost silent
about the possibility that the difference of circumstances might have
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
brought about the very difference of manner which is stressed by
Thucydides himself, by the Corinthians and above all by Pericles
in: his Funeral Speech. They do say that the primary motive for
Athenian expansion was fear or concern with security. Yet even they
speak with pride of the singular daring and intelligence to which
Athens owes her greatness. The Spartan king Archidamus who was
reputed to be both intelligent and moderate wishes to preserve the
peace (I 79-85). He recommends tranquil and slow deliberation.
He is therefore compelled to defend the Spartan manner which
according to the Corinthians has brought Sparta inta grave danger.
At the same time he must, just as the Athenians and for the same
reason, minimize the difference between the Spartan and the Athe-
nian manner. This Spartan, we may say, is compelled to praise the
Spartan manner in a Spartan manner. His speech breathes sober
apprehension regarding the proposed war or the absence of all hope
except regarding the possibility of reaching some peaceful agree-
ment with Athens; that hope is based on the possibility that the
Athenians might prefer in the Spartan manner the. tranquil posses-
sion of what they have to the risks of war. He asserts that the
Spartan qualities to which the Corinthians objected are the cause
of Spartan freedom and her outstanding renown. Moderation guar-
antees against insolent pride in success and against abjectness in
disaster. It makes the Spartans wise in counsel and brave in battle,
for it is akin to reverance or sense of shame which in its turn is
akin to bravery, and it makes them submit to the superior wisdom
of the laws.
Even if Thucydides would have agreed with Archidamus in
every other point, he disagreed with his appraisal of the situation.
According to Thucydides, the Spartans who were so averse to taking
risks and so slow to go to war were compelled by the Athenians to
go to war against the Athenians. Thucydides agrees then in effect
with the harsh and unpleasant Spartan ephor who opposed Archi-
damus’ peaceable counsel in the Spartan assembly; Thucydides does
not say that Archidamus had in fact good judgment but merely
that he was reputed to have good judgment (I 23.6, 84, 88, 118.2).
If we take into consideration the connection between moderation,
reverence for antiquity, and above all for the divine law, we are
not surprised to learn that when the Spartans sent to Delphi to ask
the god whether they should go to war against Athens, he assured
them of victory if they would wage that war with all their might,
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THE CITY AND MAN
and told them in addition that he himself would help them, called
or uncalled (I 118.3). And the Spartans won the war.
If we také into consideration the connection between modera-
tion, gentleness, justice, and the divine law, we understand not only
Thucydides’ admiration for the Spartan manner, but above all his
humanity which might seem to come to sight only on the margin
of a power-political text but which is more likely to point to the
boundary or limit separating lawful and unlawful politics. He re-
veals his compassion for the victims of angry passion or even
murderous savagery most clearly when he speaks of the lamentable
disaster which befell Mycalessus, a small town possessing a large
school for children—of the senseless and cowardly butchery of
women, children, and beasts (VII 29.4-5, 30.3). He reveals himself
above all in his remark about the fate of Nicias: Nicias deserved
least of all Greeks of Thucydides’ time his disastrous end because
of his full dedication, guided and inspired by law, to the practice of
excellence (VII 86.5; cf. 77.2-3). As Thucydides narrates in the
same context, Nicias’ fellow commander Demosthenes came to a
no less disastrous end. But—this is implied in his judgment on
Nicias—Demosthenes’ fate was not so entirely undeserved as that
of Nicias, since Demosthenes was not as fully dedicated to law-bred
virtue. The connection, expected by Thucydides, between the dedi-
cation, guided by law and surely also by divine law, to virtue and
a good end, between desert and fate, points to the rule of just gods.
After Thucydides had completed the proof of his assertion that
the ancients were weak and in addition had spoken of his manner
of treating both the ancient things and the Peloponnesian war itself,
he adds a chapter (I 23) which concludes his Introduction in an
apparently strange way. The chapter ceases to appear strange if one
reads it by itself with a view to the question of how it might be a
fitting conclusion to the Introduction, and if one keeps in mind the
message conveyed by Thucydides’ most comprehensive judgments.
The chapter consists of two parts, the first proving again the
superiority of the Peloponnesian war to all earlier wars and the
second dealing with the causes of the Peloponnesian war. In the
first part Thucydides proves the superiority of the Peloponnesian
war to the Persian war which was the greatest of the earlier deeds
and therewith to all earlier wars by showing that the Peloponnesian
war surpassed the Persian war in regard to human sufferings. These
sufferings were caused partly by men and partly by what we are
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oe a al A REN RA a SER NTA RT ap AL Pe eS Ae Vee ete Ee coe
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
tempted to call natural catastrophes: earthquakes, eclipses of the
sun, droughts and as their consequence famines, and last but not
least the plague. It is at least as proper to speak of sufferings in-
flicted by human beings on the one hand and of “demonic (divine)
things” on the other (II 64.2). The four demonic things independent
of one another which Thucydides mentions might remind one of the
four elements.® Eclipses of the sun are indeed not disasters but they
may well be thought to announce disasters. The connection between
the disasters of human origin and the other kind of disasters would
then be supplied by divine rule: the gods punished Greece for the
fratricidal war,’® and they punished especially those Greeks who
were responsible for the war. Accordingly, Thucydides turns imme-
diately to the question of who was responsible for the war. His
answer is that the Athenians forced the Spartans into war. The
plague smote the Athenians and not the Spartans. Was it not Apollo
who sent the plague which smote the Athenians (II 54.4-5)? The
majority of the Greeks sympathized with the Spartans who appeared
to be the liberators of Greece from Athenian tyranny (II 8.4-5). At
any rate if one remembers what Thucydides had said earlier in
praise of Sparta as distinguished from Athens, one will cease to find
the concluding chapter of the Introduction disconcerting.
By starting from the most comprehensive judgments made by
Thucydides himself we arrive at the conclusion that this great
Athenian preferred the Spartan manner to the Athenian manner.
This in itself is not paradoxical: there is no necessity that a man,
and especially a great man, should identify himself with what pre-
vails or what is most highly esteemed in his place of birth or with
the ancestral. The judgments from which we have started are much
less resplendent than the praise of Athens in the Funeral Speech,
but the Funeral Speech expresses the sentiments of Pericles and not
those of Thucydides. It is not Thucydides’ fault if his readers are
more impressed by the brilliant than by the unobtrusive. It is one of
the differences between Sparta and Athens that no Spartan could
* Cf. Lucretius VI 1096ff.
* Aristophanes, Peace 204ff. Cf. the sequence of topics in III 86-89:
a small Athenian expedition to Sicily; the plague smites the Athenians for the
second time, and earthquakes; Aeolus and Hephaestus; the Spartans regarding
an earthquake as an ill omen fail to invade Attica; natural consequences of
earthquakes. The preceding section (III 69-85) dealing with the civil war (in
Corcyra) is the only one in which “the divine law” is mentioned.
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praise Sparta as well as Pericles praised Athens: Spartans were less
eloquent or more laconic than the Athenians (cf. IV 84.2). On the
other hand, no non-Spartan had a reason for praising Sparta as
unqualifiedly as Pericles praised Athens, for all non-Spartans who
were not enemies of Sparta, requesting Sparta’s grudgingly given
help, were compelled to express their dissatisfaction with the
Spartan manner. Pericles’ Funeral Speech, however, precisely serves
the purpose of making everyone who listens—Athenian or foreigner
—most satisfied with the Athenian manner and Athenian policy.
All this goes to show that the absence of a praise of Sparta which is
comparable in power to the praise of Athens in the Funeral Speech,
does not prove that in Thucydides’ view Sparta did not deserve
higher praise than Athens. Thucydides does praise Pericles. But
this praise is perfectly compatible with preferring Sparta to Pericles
and his Athens. Pericles was by far superior to his successors by
his ability to guide Athens safely in peace and through the war;
Athens reached her greatest power under his rule (II 65.5-13). Yet
Thucydides does not say of Periclean Athens as he says of Sparta
that it succeeded in combining prosperity with moderation and still
less that Athens succeeded in this thanks to Pericles. He does not
even mention moderation (sophrosyne) in his eulogy of Pericles.
Nor does his Pericles ever in any of his three speeches mention
moderation. This revealing silence is not rendered ambiguous by the
fact that both Cleon and the Athenian ambassadors to Melos use
that word, for it is a sign of Pericles’ superiority to his successors
that he knows what he is talking about. The Funeral Speech, pro-
nounced in obedience to a law, opens with a blame of that very
law: Pericles lacks the moderation which prevents a man from
regarding himself as wiser than the law (II 35; cf. I 84.3). This is
to say nothing of the link between Pericles’ speeches and the famous
or infamous dialogue of the Athenians with the Melians in which
the existence of a divine law limiting the desire for expansion is
openly denied; Pericles admits without hesitation the quasi-
tyrannical character of his Athens’ rule over her subject cities (II
63.2; V 104-105.2). The Funeral Speech as a whole is a praise of
the Athenian manner in contradistinction especially to the Spartan
manner—of daring, permissiveness, and hope as opposed to caution,
sternness, and fear. The fact that under Pericles, or thanks to Peri-
cles, Athens became most powerful does not prove that under him,
or thanks to him, it became “best.” The polity established in 411
appeared to Thucydides to be the best that Athens had in his life-
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THUCYDIDES PELOPONNESIAN WAR
time (VIII 97.2). The Periclean regime—a democracy in name but
in fact the rule of the first man (II 65.9)—was inferior. It indeed
saved democracy from itself and increased Athens’ power and
splendor beyond anything achieved earlier but it had to rely con-
stitutionally on elusive chance: on the presence of a Pericles. A
sound regime is one in which a fairly large group united by civic
virtue of a fairly high level rules in broad daylight, in its own
right. However great Pericles’ merits may have been, his rule is
inseparable from the Athenian democracy; it belongs to the Athe-
nian democracy; the judgment on Pericles’ rule must not be made in ©
oblivion of the unsolid character of its foundation. A sound regime
is a moderate regime dedicated to moderation.
All this is in accordance with our first impression according to
which Thucydides’ horizon is the horizon of the city. Every human
being and every society is what it is by virtue of the highest to
which it looks up. The city, if it is healthy, looks up, not to the
laws which it can unmake as it made them, but to the unwritten
laws, the divine law, the gods of the city. The city must transcend
itself. The city can disregard the divine law; it can become guilty
of hybris by deed and by speech: the Funeral Speech is followed
by the plague, and the dialogue with the Melians is followed by the
disaster in Sicily. This would seem to be the most comprehensive
instruction which Thucydides silently conveys, the silent character
of the conveyance being required by the chaste character of his
piety."* If this is so, we shall cease to wonder why he is so silent
about economic and cultural matters. Such matters were less im-
portant to him than, for instance, which army was in the possession
of the battlefield after a battle; this was ultimately due to the fact
that burial of one’s dead is a most sacred duty; the army which had
to abandon the battlefield was compelled to ask the enemy for per-
mission to gather their dead and thus formally to concede defeat;
this was a further reason why possession of the battlefield was so
important.’ When Thucydides fails to mention “the doubling or
trebling of the tribute [of Athens’ allies] in 425°—“the most notable
emission in his narrative” from the point of view of the modern
historian**—this may well be due to the fact that for Thucydides
"Cf. Classen-Steup, Thukydides 1 (4th ed.; Berlin, 1897) pp. xliv—alvi.
= Cf IV 44 with Plutarch, Nicias 6.5-6.
“A.W. Gomme, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 1 (Oxford,
1945) 26.
THE CITY AND MAN
and for the cities, the payment of tribute as such, i.e. impairment of
freedom, was much more important than the amount of the tribute;
what is most important for the city is its freedom, the freedom
endangered by the tyrant city of Athens: Sparta did not impose
tribute on her allies but only her regime so favorable to stable
freedom or an approximation to her regime (I 19). The general
conclusion which we have drawn from Thucydides’ explicit state-
ments surely goes beyond these statements: we shall have to recon-
sider, in the light of the evidence supplied especially by his silence,
our tentative suggestion as to what in his view transcends the city.
Wherever that reconsideration will lead us, it cannot make doubtful
the fact that the most important consideration concerns that which
transcends the city or which is higher than the city; it does not
concern things which are simply subordinate to the city.
8. The Case for Athens: Daring, Progress, and the Arts
The first subject of our reconsideration must be Thucydides’ initial
judgment according to which the Peloponnesian war was greater than
the earlier wars, that it was the most memorable war. He selected
this war not only because he happened to be contemporary with it
but because he regarded it as singularly memorable. The greatness
of this war is therefore not only the reason for the selection of his
theme but is itself a theme, an important ingredient in his account
of the war: one does not know the truth about the Peloponnesian
war if one does not know that it was the greatest war. The proof of
the initial assertion seems to be supplied by the few lines in which
Thucydides shows that the Peloponnesian war surpassed by far the
Persian war by virtue of the sufferings which it caused. But perhaps
there was another war which caused greater sufferings than the
Persian war. And perhaps the greatness of a war is not merely
established by the amount of suffering which it causes. The fact
that an author as terse as Thucydides wrote about nineteen chapters
in order to prove his contention that the Peloponnesian war was the
greatest or most memorable war shows that that war had another
competitor than the Persian war. That competitor was the ‘Trojan
war. A generation after him, Isocrates still maintained the view that
the Trojan war was the greatest war.**
* Panathenaicus 76-83; Helen 49.
155
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAB
The Peloponnesian war was the greatest motion because it
affected all Greece and a part of the barbarians, “so to speak the
largest part of mankind.”* It was, so to speak, the first universal
motion. It was the most memorable war because it was memorable,
so to speak, to all men. Its universality is not impaired by the fact
that not all barbarians were affected by it; it is sufficiently guaran-
teed by the fact that all Greece and some barbarians were affected
by it because of the special importance of the Greeks for the Greek
Thucydides. For the Peloponnesian war to be the greatest motion,
it is of decisive importance that the Greeks, f.e. the leading Greek
cities, were at their peak when the war began: the Peloponnesian
war is the climactic war. Being both universal and climactic, it is
the complete war, the absolute war. It is the war, war writ large:"*
the universal character of war will be more visible, and there will
be more of war in the greatest war than in any other, smaller
war. The Peloponnesian war is that singular event which reveals
fully, in an unsurpassable manner, for all times, the nature of war.
Thucydides is under an obligation to prove his contention that
the Peloponnesian war is the absolute war, the universal and cli-
mactic war. The universal war requires communication among all
cities and, so to speak, among all countries, especially communica-
tion overseas; it presupposes the existence of powerful and wealthy
cities. He must then prove that these requirements were fulfilled
to a much lesser degree in the past than in his own time; he must
show “the weakness of the ancients” (I 3.1). He matches his sug-
gestion regarding the universality of the war (“so to speak the
largest part of mankind”) by a suggestion regarding the most
ancient antiquity (as distinguished from the most ancient antiquity
of which one knows by tradition—cf. I 4 beg.), regarding the simply
first things. He suggests that it is difficult to arrive at an opinion
backed by evidence about that earlier event which could be thought
to challenge the supremacy of the Peloponnesian war, i.e. the Trojan
war, and the still more ancient things (I 1.2): he makes us wonder
whether anything can be known regarding the most ancient things.
Yet since the development from that antiquity of which we have
some direct knowledge to the present is, on the whole, a progress
in security, power, and wealth, it becomes sufficiently clear that at
*Y 1.2; cf. II 41.4.
* Cf, Plato, Republic 368e7-8.
165.
THE CITY AND MAN
the beginning there was unlimited insecurity, weakness, and pov-
erty. The reason for this was the unlimited rule in the beginning of
unrest, of motion. Very slowly and sporadically man found some
rest. During the periods of rest and security—periods which lasted
much longer than the periods of motion alternating with them—
power and wealth were built up. Power and wealth were built up
not in and through motion but in and through rest (I 2, 7, 8.3, 12,
13.1). Rest, not motion, peace, not war, is good. The process
reached its peak in Sparta and Athens at the outbreak of the Pelo-
ponnesian war. The Peloponnesian war, the greatest motion, follows
on the greatest rest, embodies the greatest rest. Only for this reason
can it be the greatest motion. Therefore the understanding of the
Peloponnesian war which makes manifest the nature of war makes
manifest also the nature of peace: Thucydides’ work enables one to
understand not only all past and future wars but the past and future
things simply (I 1.3 end, 22.4).
The rise from original and universal insecurity, weakness, and
poverty to security, power, and wealth became in certain places the
rise from original and universal barbarism to what one may call
Greekness, the union of freedom and love of beauty. The very name
“Greeks” is recent. So is the Greek way of life. Originally the Greeks
lived like barbarians. Originally the Greeks were barbarians. In the
most ancient antiquity there were no Greeks (I 3, 6). In the initial
universal unrest or motion all men were barbarians. Rest, long
periods of rest, were the conditions for the emergence of Greekness.
Greekness is late and rare; it is the exception. Just as humanity
divides itself into Greeks and barbarians, Greekness in its turn has
two poles, Sparta and Athens. The fundamental opposition of mo-
tion and rest returns on the level of Greekness; Sparta cherishes
rest whereas Athens cherishes motion. The peak of Sparta and
Athens was reached at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war. In
that greatest motion, power, wealth, and Greekness, built up during
a long rest, are used and used up. Greeks and barbarians, the ele-
ments and the gods, seem to have conspired to do the utmost
damage to Greekness (I 23.1-3). The decline begins. The greatest
rest is that in which Greekness reaches its peak; it finds its culmina-
tion, its end in the greatest motion. The greatest motion weakens,
endangers, nay destroys, not only power and wealth but Greekness
as well. It leads soon to that unrest within the city, the stasis, which
is re-barbarization. The most savage and murderous barbarism,
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
which was slowly overcome by the building up of Greekness; re-
appears in the midst of Greece: Thracian mercenaries in the pay of
Athens murder the children attending a Greek school. Thucydides
envisages the ruin of Sparta and Athens: just as his contemporaries
have looked at the remains of barbarians on Apollo's island, he has
seen with his mind’s eye the ruins of Sparta and Athens (I 8.1,
10.1-2). He was familiar with the thought that “by nature all things
will eventually also decline,” for he makes his Pericles express that
thought (II 64.3). It is not in vain that he reports about the new
powers in the north, the great Odrysian empire and, above all, the
amazing progress of Macedon under king Archelaus (II 97.5-6,
100.2).
The Peloponnesian war, a singular event, is distinguished from
all other singular events by the fact that it is the climactic Greek
war. In studying that war, one sees the Greeks at their peak in
motion; one sees the beginning of the descent. The peak of Greek-
ness is the peak of humanity. The Peloponnesian war and what it
implies exhausts the possibilities of man. Just as one cannot under-
stand that greatest motion without understanding the greatest rest,
one cannot understand Greekness without understanding barbarism.
All human life moves between the poles of war and peace and
between the poles of barbarism and Greekness. By studying the
Peloponnesian war Thucydides grasps the limits of all human things.
By studying this singular event against the background of the
ancient things he grasps the nature of all human things. It is for
this reason that his work is a possession for all times.
Thucydides was compelled to prove the supremacy of the Pelo-
ponnesian war by bringing to light the weakness of the ancients
because men believed in the supremacy of the Trojan war. The
Trojan war owed its renown to Homer. By questioning the suprem-
acy of the Trojan war Thucydides questions the authority of Homer.
By proving the weakness of the ancients he proves that the account
given by the ancients was not true in the decisive respect: he proves
the weakness of the ancients, and in particular of Homer, in regard
to wisdom. By proving that the Greeks who fought the Pelopon-
nesian war were at their peak, he proves that his wisdom is superior
to Homer's wisdom. But for Thucydides’ inquiry, the glamor of
antiquity—a glamor made immortal by Homer—would always out-
shine the solid superiority of Thucydides’ time. Thucydides con-
fronts us with the choice between Homeric and Thucydidean
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wisdom. He engages in a contest with Homer. Homer lived long
after the Trojan war; this alone makes him a questionable witness
to the Trojan war. Above all, Homer is a poet. Poets magnify and
adorn and they tell fabulous stories; they thus conceal the truth
about human beings and human nature. Homeric wisdom reveals
the character of human life by presenting deeds and speeches which
are magnified and adorned. Thucydidean wisdom reveals the char-
acter of human life by presenting deeds and speeches which are not
magnified and adorned. The Greek princes followed Agamemnon
to Troy not, as the poets suggest, oui of graciousness but out of fear
or compulsion. The strange course of the Trojan war is to be ex-
plained prosaically by the Greeks’ lack of money.’* Thucydides’
prosaic treatment of the Trojan war (to say nothing of his treatment
of the Peloponnesian war) foreshadows Cervantes’ treatment of
knight errantry.
The new wisdom is then superior to the old wisdom as wisdom.
Yet it is precisely by trusting Homer that Thucydides succeeds in
bringing to light the truth about the Trojan war (I 10.1-3). Above
all, Homer was admired because he revealed the truth which he
knew in a way that is most pleasing. Thucydides does not seem to
deny that his wisdom too will be pleasing: “The non-fabulous char-
acter of my account will perhaps appear to be less pleasing to the
ear.” It will not appear less pleasing than Homer's poetry to those
whose ears have been properly trained."* Thucydides’ severe and
austere wisdom too is music: inspired by a Muse, if by a higher and
therefore severer and more austere Muse than Homer's. In a word,
it is perhaps more enlightening to see Thucydides as engaged in a
contest with Homer than as a scientific historian: human wisdom
rather than anything else is the core of Greekness.
Thucydides deals in the Introduction to his work first with the
superiority of the Peloponnesian war to all earlier wars (1 1-19)
and then with the superiority of his kind of account to all earlier
accounts (I 20-22). Thucydides is concerned not only with the war
but also with his logos. The progress in wisdom achieved by him is
akin to the progress of which he speaks most comprehensively in his
“archeology.” His age could boast of a progress beyond the whole
past in experience, craft, and knowledge, especially in Athens (I
*1-3.8; 9.1, 8; 10.8; 11.1, 8; 21.1; 29.4,
* Cf. Cicero, Orator 39.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
49.1-3, 70.2, 71.2-3). His archeology is in perfect agreement with
what his Pericles says in the Funeral Speech about the achievements
of his generation as compared with those of the preceding genera-
tions (II 361-3) and about the questionable character of Homeric
wisdom (II 41.4). However highly Thucydides may have thought
of Sparta, moderation, and the divine law, his thought belongs
altogether to innovating Athens rather than to old-fashioned Sparta.
The conventional opening of his work (“Thucydides the Athenian” )
carries a non-conventional message.
Thucydides makes one wonder whether anything can be known
about the most ancient things. Yet the oldest things include the
things which are at all times, and it is with things of this kind that
the possession for all times is concerned. Thucydides sees human
nature as the stable ground of all its effects—of war and peace,
barbarism and Greekness, civic concord and discord, sea-power and
land-power, the few and the many. The nature of man cannot be
understood without some understanding of nature as a whole. War
being a kind of motion and peace being a kind of rest, they are only
particular forms of the universal, all-pervasive interplay of motion
and rest. Accordingly Thucydides is concerned with things other
than human as well as with human things, and not only with such
non-human things as directly affected the Peloponnesian war, as the
plague and earthquakes. He speaks of land making inroads on the
sea and of the sea making inroads on the land and suggests natural
causes of these happenings (II 102.3-4, III 89). He suggests a
natural explanation of Odysseus’ Charybdis (IV 24.5). What his
wily Demosthenes seems to have called “the nature of the place,”
he calls “the place itself” (IV 3.2, 4.3). Most striking is his account
of the plague—a mighty change, hence motion—which surpassed
all remembered earlier destructions of human beings anywhere as
much as the Peloponnesian war surpassed all earlier wars (II 47.3,
48.3, 53.2). Instead of speculating on whether the opposition of sea
and land (and hence of sea-power and land-power and therefore
in particular of Athens and Sparta) must be understood ultimately
in the light of the opposition of motion and rest, we reconsider the
relation of motion and rest to progress and decline on. the one hand,
to Sparta and Athens on the other. However much progress may
owe to rest, progress itself is motion. Besides, not only rest but also
motion, in particular war, leads to power and wealth (I 15.1-2,
18.2-3, 19). Finally, as sone of Thucydides’ characters contend,
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THE CITY AND MAN
rest is ruinous to craft and knowledge, whereas the opposite is true
of motion (I 71.3, VI 18.6). Yet it is also true that the statesman
who has acquired knowledge, like Pericles, as opposed to the fickle
multitude, represents superhuman rest in the midst of human motion
—rest confronting, understanding, and mastering motion (I 140.1,
II 61.2, 65.4). Thucydides’ work could be written because he found
rest in the midst of the greatest motion (V 26.5). The highest, things
which we find in Athens are akin to rest or are the highest form of
rest. For it is not so much motion as a certain kind of interplay of
motion and rest which is responsible for the ancient poverty, weak-
ness, and barbarism, and it is not rest but another kind of interplay
of motion and rest which is responsible for present wealth, power,
and Greekness. However much all things may always be in mation,
the highest at which human thought arrives—motion and rest—is
stable. The highest form of rest is not, like the form represented by
Sparta, opposed to daring but presupposes the utmost daring: in the
olden times men had no daring (I 17). The highest form of rest
can therefore not be coordinated with moderation.
If motion and rest are the most ancient things, they will tran-
scend or comprise the gods. From Homer's Shield of Achilles we
might learn that the gods are more visible in war than in peace. In
the war which was more war than any other war, in the greatest
war, of which Thucydides studied the most minute details, he found
no trace of the gods: are they likely to have been more effective in
smaller wars and in particular in the Trojan war? Or is not precisely
this the core of Homer’s magnifying and adorning, that he traces
the Trojan war and many of its incidents to the gods? Will our
insight into the barbarism and the weakness of the ancients, and in
particular their weakness regarding wisdom, not affect our view
about the gods and the divine things which are decidedly ancient?"®
Two men stand out in Thucydides’ account of antiquity, Minos and
Agamemnon. He says nothing of Minos’ ancestry and he speaks only
in a somewhat garbled fashion of Agamemnon’s ancestry.?° His
archeology leaves one wondering whether the gods could have been
anything for him but immensely magnified barbarians of the remote
past. If this should prove to be correct, the divine law to which he
* Cf. Euripides, Helen 13-14.
*I 4 and 9.1-2. Cf. the first mention of a god in I 18.6 (cf. I 8.1) with
I 126.3-5. Consider II 68.8-5 and 102.5-6. ,
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
refers so powerfully cannot be a law laid down by any god; its
origin and hence its essence becomes altogether obscure. If however
the divine law properly understood is the interplay of motion and
rest, one must study his work in the light of the question af how
that divine law is related to the divine law in the ordinary under-
standing.
Thisydides belongs in a sense to Periclean Athens—to the
Athens in which Anaxagoras and Protagoras taught and were per-
secuted on the ground of impiety.*t The Funeral Speech in which
his Pericles sets forth what his Athens stands for is silent about the
divine law. His Pericles speaks only of the unwritten laws or, more
precisely, of such unwritten laws as have been laid down for the
benefit of the human beings who suffer injustice; transgression of
these laws leads to disgrace at Athens—nothing is said to the effect
that it is followed by divine retribution. He is silent about the gods
or the strictly superhuman. He does mention sacrifices: when speak-
ing of the relaxations from toil which are provided by the city (II
37.3, 38.1; cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1160a19-25). In the sole reference
to the superhuman which occurs in any of his three speeches, he
says that one must bear the superhuman (like the plague) “of
necessity” whereas one must bear what the enemy inflicts “bravely”;
he never says that one must revere the superhuman (II 64.2). The
only Periclean reference to a god—a reference to the monetary
value of the image of the goddess (Athena)—occurs character-
istically in the center of a Thucydidean summary of a Periclean
speech (II 13.5). Thucydides’ argument in favor of Sparta, of mod-
eration, of the divine law—important as it is—is only a part of his
teaching, The praise of Sparta—the highest praise occurring within
the archeology—thought through to its conclusion would lead to the
highest praise of the most ancient antiquity.** This whole line of
thought is contradicted by the explicit and opening thesis of the
archeology as a whole—the thesis asserting the supremacy of the
Peloponnesian war—and all that that thesis implies. The contra-
diction corresponds to the opposition between old-fashioned Sparta
and innovating Athens, between admiration for antiquity and
admiration for the present as the peak. Only the former—the
equation of the good with the old or ancestral—seems to be in
"Plutarch, Nicias 23,2-3.
"Cf. the ek palaitatou in I 18.1 with I 1.2.
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THE CITY AND MAN
agreement with the view of the city as city. Yet the city thinks
differently at different times. We learn from Thucydides that the
admiration for antiquity, just as the admiration for moderation, is
at home in peace whereas men tend to regard every war in which
they are engaged, every present war, as the greatest (I 21.2), per-
haps because during war the present calls for the supreme effort.
Thucydides’ bald assertion regarding the supremacy of the Pelopon-
nesian war is then in accordance with a natural prejudice and there-
fore not offensive. But it so happens that what in many cases is
merely a prejudice is in the case of the Peloponnesian war a demon-
strable truth which when demonstrated eradicates forever the much
more powerful prejudice in favor of antiquity, the prejudice which
is at home in peace, when men live securely and protectedly. The
view which belongs to war, the admiration for the present and all
this implies, so far from being simply wrong, is truer than the
opposite view.?> War is a “violent teacher”: it teaches men not only
to act violently but also about violence and therewith about the
truth. War is a violent teacher not only of everyone except Thu-
cydides but also of Thucydides himself. Taught by that teacher
Thucydides presents the war as it unfolds. Generally speaking, he
lets us see the war at each point as it could be seen at the time;
he shows us the war from different viewpoints. In doing this he
could not help presenting his own conversion from the peace time
view to the war time view or his most advanced education. The
result of this innermost process animating his work is the classic
political history. In his work we observe the genesis of political
history, political history in statu nascendi, still visibly connected
with its origin. Thucydides is concerned above everything else with
war, more generally with foreign policy; the overriding concern
with domestic politics, with the good order within the city, he
leaves to the moderate citizens (cf. IV 28.5).
By the process animating Thucydides’ work we do not mean
then a change of his thought of which he was not necessarily aware
and which has left traces in his work of which he was not neces-
sarily aware. We rather have in mind that deliberate movement of
his thought between two different points of view which expresses
itself in the deliberate dual treatment of the same subject from
different points of view, for instance of the Athenian tyrannicides.
* Consider VI 70.1.
162
i
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
He devotes the highest praise to the justice and goodness of that
noble Spartan Brasidas (IV 81) and then asserts that Brasidas was .
decidedly opposed to peace between Sparta and Athens because
of the honor which he derived from his victories (V 16.1). The first
judgment is that of a man who surveys the whole war; the second:
judgment brings out how Brasidas appeared at the time to the
peace parties, especially to the peace party in Sparta.** Not unlike
his teacher, Thucydides is as flexible as he is austere. His seeing and .
showing things from a variety of points of view which he does not
explicitly identify leads us naturally to the speeches of his charac-
ters through which he shows things as they appear to a named
individual or city at a given time. The writing of those speeches
thus appears to be only a special case of Thucydides’ general pro-
cedure. Every speech is a part—a part of a peculiar kind—of Thu-
cydides’ speech.
4. The Speeches of the Actors and the S ‘peech of
Thucydides
We must try to find out what particular kind of Thucydides’ speech
is constituted by the speeches of his characters. After having com-
pleted his proof of the superiority of the Peloponnesian war to all
earlier wars or rather of the present to antiquity, he comes to speak
of the difficulty attending the discovery of the truth concerning
antiquity.”> That truth is concealed by time. But distance in time is
not the only reason why men are mistaken; local distance is also of
some importance. “Human beings” or “the many””* are not deterred
by these difficulties from having firmly held thoughts about the
past and about foreign things. These thoughts became known to
Thucydides through men’s speeches. The truth brought to light by
him about antiquity or, which is the same thing, about the superi-
ority of the Peloponnesian war to all earlier wars, will be seen to be
the truth by those who look at things by starting from the deeds
* Cf. V 14 (the reason why both Athens and Sparta favored peace) with
15 (the reason for the Spartans’ taking the initiative toward peace).
“I 20 beginning. The passage makes clear that the whole preceding dis-
cussion deals with the ancient things, either directly or indirectly; it deals with
them indirectly by showing the superiority in strength of recent times to
antiquity. :
*T 20.1, 8; cf. I 140.1,
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THE CITY AND MAN
(facts) themselves, i.e. not from what people say or the speeches
(cf. also I 14 end). Immediately after having spoken of his treat-
ment of the ancient things, he turns to his treatment of the
Peloponnesian war; what he says about the bulk of his work is
shorter than what he says about his archeology. The Peloponne-
sian war is not difficult of access because of temporal distance and
not altogether difficult of access because of local distance; hence
in this case the speeches, i.e. the reports about the deeds, would
seem to be no obstacle to the discovery of the truth. It is in this
delicate manner that Thucydides opens our minds to the thought
that “human beings” may be as profoundly mistaken about what is
going on before their eyes as about happenings in the remotest past
in the remotest countries. The first difficulty concerns the speeches
delivered before the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war and during
that war. Some of the speeches Thucydides himself had heard; but
it was difficult for him to remember the exact wording; the diffi-
culty of knowing the exact wording was, to say the least, no less in
the case of those speeches for the knowledge of which he had to
rely on reports by others. He decided therefore to write the speeches
himself, keeping as close as possible to the gist of what the speakers
had said—writing in each case how the speaking man or body of
men “seemed” to him to have said to the highest degree what was
appropriate in the circumstances about the subject at hand. (This
implies, I believe, that he abstracted from the defects of diction
from which a given speaker might have suffered but did not endow
any speaker with qualities of understanding and choosing which
he lacked.) As for the deeds done in the war, the “how it seemed”
to him did not enter at all in his narrative.2” What Thucydides says
about the speeches is surrounded on both sides by references to
“deeds.”*
The only thing which seems to emerge with sufficient clarity
from Thucydides’ statement about the speeches is that what “seemed”
to Thucydides is more present in the speeches than in his account
of the deeds. He does not make clear why he wrote the speeches at
all; he merely makes clear how, after having decided to write the
speeches, he brought them as close to the truth as possible. It goes
* This must be taken with a grain of salt; cf. If 17.2, III 89.5, VI 55.3,
VII 87.5, VII 56.3, 64.5, 87.4 (cf. ibid. 3 beginning); cf. also I 1.8; 9.1, 3;
10.4.
* Cf. also I 21 end with I 23 beginning.
164
vat
Sh
“ae
wa
Seb ne de
MRE. >
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
without saying that the question of why he wrote the speeches
cannot be answered by reference to Homer's practice. Some points
may be learned through consideration of the immediate context of
Thucydides’ statement. However great the value of the speeches
may be, the deeds are more trustworthy than the speeches. Yet the
deeds became known to Thucydides partly through speeches, te.
through the reports of eyewitnesses; these reports we-e vitiated to
some extent by the bad memory and the partiality of the reporters
(I 22.3). It is reasonable to assume that not all speakers of the
speeches recorded within the work were free from these failings and
that Thucydides appropriately preserved this characteristic when
he wrote the speeches which he ascribed to those speakers. He
divides the subject matter of his work into the speeches delivered
both prior to the war and during the war and the deeds done
during the war. Since he devotes considerable space to the deeds
done prior to the war, he thus draws our attention to the fact that
in an important respect the speeches simply precede the deeds. The
speeches which simply precede the deeds concern the causes of the
deeds, men’s plans and intentions: only speeches can make manifest
the immanifest (III 42.2). They concern above all the causes of the
war, the causes openly “spoken,” as distinguished from the truest
cause which remains unspoken or unavowed (I 23.4): the speeches
may be deceptive not only because of the bad memory and the
partiality of the speakers; they may also be meant to deceive. Of
the speeches Thucydides says that it was difficult to remember the
exact wording and hence he did not remember it, whereas of the
deeds he says that he found out the truth about them with toil.
When he denies that his book is necessarily unpleasing, he may
have thought of the speeches in the first place.
What do the speeches achieve that the most perfect report about
the speeches could not have achieved? Such a report would have
revealed to us the intention of the speech, the arguments used by
the speaker to support that intention as well as those used to refute
the opponents, the order of the arguments as well as the weight
which the speaker assigned to each argument; it would have in-
cluded a description of the abilities, the manners and the present
disposition of the speaker as well as of the disposition of the audi-
ence; it would have told us whether or to what extent the speech
of the speaker agreed with his deeds if the latter did not become
known to us through the narrative. What we would still miss is the
presence of the speaker: we would not see him by hearing him; we
165
THE CITY AND MAN
would not be exposed to him, affected by him, perhaps bewitched
by him. The most perfect Thucydidean reports about the speeches
would be parts of Thucydides’ speech like all its other parts; we
would not see Thucydides’ speech in its peculiarity; and we would
be exposed only to Thucydides. For what distinguishes Thucydides’
speech from the speeches of his characters? The speeches are partial
in a double sense. They deal with a particular situation or difficulty,
and they are spoken from the point of view of one or the other side
of the warring cities or contending parties. Thucydides’ narrative
corrects this partiality: Thucydides’ speech is impartial in the
double sense. It is not partisan and it is comprehensive since it
deals, to say the least, with the whole war. By integrating the
political speeches into the true and comprehensive speech, he makes
visible the fundamental difference between the political speech and
the true speech. No political speech ever serves the purpose of
revealing the truth as such; every political speech serves a particular
political purpose, and it attempts to achieve it by exhorting or
dehorting, by accusing or exculpating, by praising or blaming, by
imploring or refusing. The speeches abound therefore with praise
and blame, whereas Thucydides’ speech is reserved. The speakers
answer questions—and not merely questions of the moment but the
most fundamental and permanent questions concerning human
action—which. Thucydides does not answer, and they do so in a
most persuasive manner. Thus the reader is almost irresistibly
tempted to agree with the speaker and to believe that Thucydides,
who after all wrote the speech, must have used the speaker as his
mouthpiece. Thucydides helps us indeed in judging of the wisdom
of the speeches, not only by his account of the deeds but also by
giving us his judgment of the wisdom, not indeed of the speeches
but of the speakers, yet he does not do this in all cases and, above
all, in no case is his explicit judgment, be it of men or of policies,
complete. In fact, precisely the speeches more than anything else
convey to us his judgment of the speakers and not only of the
speakers.
The Corcyreans in addressing the Athenians seem to commit an
“unconscious contradiction”: “Corcyra will have it both ways—the
war is anyhow coming’ and ‘this action will not involve a casus
belli.’”*° Yet an action desirable or necessary with a view to an
= Gomme, loc. cif. 169.
166
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
expected war, even if the action is regarded as provocative by the
prospective enemy, does not necessarily constitute a breach of the
treaty with that power, and the Corcyrearis consider no other casus
belli than the breach of such a treaty. It is more important however
to take cognizance of the fact that a contradiction committed un-
consciously by Thucydides’ speakers is not necessarily committed
unconsciously by Thucydides: it reveals the predicament of the
speaker and is meant to reveal it. The speech may also reveal how
the speaker overcomes the predicament in which he finds himself.
The Spartans claim to wage the war for the freedom of all cities
against the tyrant city Athens. The cities subject to Athens or allied
with her were however bound to her by treaties; to switch from the
Athenian alliance to the Spartan alliance, especially at a time when
the Athenians were hard-pressed, was thought to be not only unjust
but also dishonorable (III 9). Accordingly, when the Spartan Brasi-
das attempts to induce the Acanthians to forsake their alliance with
Athens, he does not even allude to the fact of that alliance; he
tacitly conveys the view that a city cannot be allied to Athens
except under duress. He cannot entirely dispense with threats of
what he will do to the Acanthians if they do not comply with his
request, but he threatens them with no more than that he will force
them to be free; this use of force will be perfectly just because the
Acanthians’ lack of freedom endangers the freedom of all other
cities or the good common to all cities. Still, the Acanthians might
fear that after having liberated the cities at present enslaved by
Athens, the Spartans will enslave them in turn. Brasidas refutes this
fear by assuring the Acanthians that he has bound the Spartan
government by the greatest oaths that it will not attempt anything
of this kind (IV 85-87). Just as Brasidas’ speech solves in a masterly
manner by speech the whole problem of Greek politics, Hermoc-
rates’ speech to the all-Sicilian assembly in Gela (IV 59-64) is a
masterpiece of statesmanly foresight. Foreseeing many years before
the event the Athenian attempt to conquer Sicily, he tries to put a
stop to all intra-Sicilian frictions in order to unite the Sicilians
against the common enemy, their enemy “by nature.” Sicily is
indeed divided “by nature” into Dorians and Ionians, and the
Athenians are Ionians; but the Athenian invasion will be prompted,
not by racial hatred, but by desire for the wealth of all Sicily. What
enables Hermocrates to see the danger from afar, and to suggest a
remedy in time, is his understanding of human nature; he does
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THE CITY AND MAN
not blame the Athenians for their aggression since in his view the
desire for aggrandizement is natural to man as man regardless of
what conventions or words (“names”) may make one believe. Yet,
as he is forced to admit, what unites the Sicilians is “name” rather
than “nature” (race),*° and, as he is not forced to admit in the
present circumstances, if the desire for aggrandizement is natural to
man as man cr. at any rate to the city as city, powerful and nearby
Syracuse is as much to be feared by her weaker neighbors as more
powerful but far away Athens. The difficulty which Brasidas over-
comes by claiming to trust in the greatest oaths of the highest
Spartan authority cannot be overcome by Hermocrates who is com-
pelled to appeal to nature. Continuing to disregard entirely the
disposition of the audience while however assuming its being com-
posed of tolerably decent men, we may find that the greatest diffi-
culty had to be faced by Alcibiades in his speech in Sparta. Having
been accused by the Athenians of a capital crime connected with
shocking acts of impiety and having fled to Sparta, he wishes to
revenge himself on Athens by showing the Spartans how they can
bring down their and his enemy. He has to overcome two powerful
prejudices against himself. In the first place, as an Athenian poli-
tician he had been notorious as an enemy of Sparta. Above all, he
had just betrayed or was about to betray his own city to its greatest
enemies. He disposes of the two objections by one and the same
answer: he was against the Spartans because they had wronged
him; he turns now against the Athenians because they have wronged
him (VI 89-92). Being conscious of his unique ability as well as of
his renown for it, and not being bound to any particular city
because of his infinite versatility, he is not compelled to avoid self-
contradiction by having recourse to oaths. He does contradict him-
self regarding his and his family’s posture toward democracy: the
Athenian regime which they managed is not truly democratic, and
it is democratic but they could not change it because of the war
(VI 89.4-6); but both answers serve his purpose equally well.
Thucydides gives an indirect characterization of the Athenian
democracy through the speech of the Syracusan demagogue Athen-
agoras (VI 36-40). Reports had reached Syracuse from many
sides to the effect that the Athenian invasion fleet was approaching,
but it took a long time before the reports were believed even by a
* Cf. also. VI 77.1 end, 79.2, 80.3.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
minority of the Syracusans. After Hermocrates, who was of course
sure of the truth of the reports, had addressed the Syracusan
assembly, Athenagoras opposed him, dismissing the reports a5 aD
inept move made by the Syracusan oligarchs to frighten the multi-
tude and thus to make themselves masters of the city. In Athen-
agoras’ view the Athenians are much too clever to embark on such
a foolhardy and hopeless ente.prise as the conquest of Sicily. The
only thing that will put an end to the subversive activities of the
Syracusan oligarchic youth is democratic terror. This terror is jus-
fied because there is no sound or respectable reason for opposing
democracy—the regime which is both fair and wise: it gives a more
than equal share in the common good to the deserving men among
the rich, and the multitude is the best judge of the wisdom of the
speakers. Thucydides has entrusted to Athenagoras the clearest and
most comprehensive exposition of the democratic view which occurs
in his work, for the ringing sentences of the Funeral Speech de-
scribe not democracy as such, but the Athenian regime.*? This fact
alone must make his speech an object of the greatest interest to us-
As is shown by the deeds, the Syracusan democrat was mistaken at
least to the extent that he did not know and understand the Athe-
nian democracy: the Athenian invading force did come with the
full approval of the Athenian multitude and it would have suc-
ceeded in its mission if Athenagoras’ counterparts in Athens had not
recalled Alcibiades from the invading force for reasons not dis-
similar to those of Athenagoras, with the full approval of the
Athenian multitude. Athenagoras did not know the Athenian multi-
tude because he was unable to look beyond the party strife within
Syracuse; he lacked the understanding and even the information
that Hermocrates possessed. The Athenian democracy was 2 special
kind of democracy, an imperial democracy exercising quasi-
tyrannical rule over her so-called allies. Even Cleon and precisely
Cleon speaks of the difficulty—he can afford to call it impossibility
—of combining empire with democracy. Cleon could preserve this
combination to some extent because he was able to imitate, or to
ape, Pericles.** Observations like these do not go to the root of the
matter; they do not touch what Aristotle would call the matter
of Athenian democracy, the nature of the Athenian people (cf. !
" Cf. especially II 37.1 with II 65.9,
© III 87.1-2; 88 beginning (cf. II 61.2).
169
THE CITY AND MAN
79.9). At the end of the address to the troops before a naval battle,
‘ the Peloponnesian commanders tell them that none of them will
have an excuse for acting as a coward and if anyone tries to act
cowardly he will be properly punished, while the brave ones will
be honored properly. The parallel to this conclusion in the address
. of the Athenian commander Phormio is his statement that the troops
‘are about to engage in a great contest: they will either make an
end to the Peloponnesians’ hope for naval victory or else bring the
fear regarding the sea nearer home to the Athenians.** The Pelo-
ponnesians appeal to the self-interest of the individual; the Athenian
appeals only to what is at stake for the city. There were no doubt
additional reasons—reasons connected with the particular situation
—for this difference between the two speeches; yet this does not
do away with the fact that Thucydides’ Phormio, if contrasted with
his Peloponnesian antagonists, i.e. unconsciously, confirms the view
explicitly stated by the Corinthians that the Athenians were singu-
larly public-spirited: the Athenian uses his body as if it were the
most external, the most foreign thing to him in order to sacrifice
it for his city, and he uses his innermost thought, most peculiar to
him, in order to do something for his city (I 70.6).
Thucydides has presented the nameless Athenian perhaps most
powerfully but surely most gracefully through the speech of the
Athenians at Sparta (I 72-78). Those Athenians happened to be in
Sparta on business of their city when the Corinthians and other
Spartan allies attempted to incite Sparta to war against Athens by
complaining to the Spartan assembly about Athenian encroach.
ments. Having heard of this anti-Athenian action they requested
and received permission of the Spartans to address the Spartan
assembly in order to counteract the effects of the Corinthian charges.
The speech constitutes an action on behalf of their city which they
undertook without having been commissioned to do it by their city.
This is the only speech of this kind in Thucydides’ work. The
speech is unique for still another reason which concerns Thucydides’
speeches in general. It is the only speech preceded by a summary,
given by Thucydides in his own name, of the gist of the speech—a
summary which to some extent agrees literally with what the
speakers themselves say at the beginning of their speech about the
™ II 87.9, 89.10. Cf. VI 69.3. Phormio addresses the Athenians alone, not
any allies: IT 88.3.
170
THUCYDIDES PELOPONNESIAN WAR
purport of their speech.** The most importent difference between
Thucydides’ summary ‘and the opening remark of the speech itself
is this: Thucydides says that the Athenians wished to show how
great their city was in regard to power; the Athenians say that they
wish to make manifest that their city is worthy of mention, or is
important. How then do they reveal the power of Athens? No part
of their speech is devoted to this subject. The main subjects of the
speech are these: (1) Athens has well deserved of Greece in the
Persian war (73.2-74); (2) Athens cannot be blamed for either the
acquisition of her empire or for the way in which she manages it
(75-77). Since the Athenian action in the Persian war laid the
foundation for the empire, the speech can be said to be devoted
to the justification of the Athenian empire in contradistinction to the
exhibition of Athenian power. It is true that by barely mentioning
the Athenian empire they would point to Athenian power, but since
everyone present knew the existence of the Athenian empire, even
their worst enemy could not say that they showed how great the
power of their city was, let alone that they boasted of their power.
Their worst enemy, a Spartan ephor, does say that they praised
themselves but he finds that praise rightly in what they said about
Athens’ merit in the Persian war.** It is indeed in the part of their
speech devoted to the Persian war that they come closest to speak-
ing explicitly of Athens’ power. The Athenians, they say, saved
Greece by contributing the largest number of ships, a most intel-
ligent commander (Themistocles), and the most daring zeal. But
what made Athens worthy of empire is not the large navy but the
zeal and intelligence shown at Salamis (74.1-2, 75.1). These quali-
ties—the superior intelligence of their leaders and the daring zeal of
the people—, they intimate, and not the navy, are the core of Athens’
power. Thucydides himself tells us that at the time of Salamis,
Sparta was much more powerful than Athens (I 18.2) in all re-
spects other than these qualities. Or, as his Pericles puts it, at the
time of Salamis when they had abandoned their city, the Athenians
had so to speak nothing but their intelligence and daring, those
virile qualities which created Athenian power rather than that
Athenian power had created these qualities (I 143.5, 144.4). By
“The speech which comes closest to the Athenians’ speech in this respect
is that by Phormio (II 88-89).
*I 86.1; cf. I 73.2-8.
171
THE CITY AND MAN
speaking, f.¢. acting, as they do, the Athenians in Sparta show forth
the mainstay of Athens’ present power. To this extent they silently
cunirm what the Corinthians had said to the Spartan assembly
about tue profound difference between the Athenians and all others.
Kut the Corinthians had interred from this difference that the Athe-
nians are therefore a menace to all others and especially to the
Spartans. The Athenians must deny the soundness of this inference.
They do this in an extraordinary manner. They trace their threaten-
ing power to compulsion: they were compelled to build their empire
by fear, by honor, and by interest; in ceding to that compulsion
they did what the Spartans, nay what all other men would have
done in their place: they ceded to human nature. What distin-
guishes their exercise of imperial power from that of all others is
the singular fairness in their dealings with their subjects. It is above
all by the amazing frankness with which they defend the Athenian
acquisition of empire that they reveal Athenian power, for only the
most powerful can afford to utter the principles which they utter.
The charge that Athens threatens Sparta is treated by them with
contempt: the Athenians just as the Spartans have never committed
the mistake of starting a war with a power equal to their own; all
differences between Athens on the one hand and Sparta and her
allies on the other can and should be settled peacefully, according
to treaty. One has spoken of the provocative irony of the Athenians
while asserting that “quite clearly Thucydides did not think that it
was the Athenian aim to be provocative, but the contrary.”** The
speech is better described as both fastidious and frank. Thucydides
knew as well as Socrates that it is easy to praise Athens before an
Athenian audience.*’ What the Athenians did in Sparta was not
easy. Thucydides is at least as fastidious as these Athenians. One
cannot say of him however that he did not have his reticences.
In order to appreciate fully the sole speech of the Athenians in
Sparta, one must also contrast it with the sole speech of the Spartans
in Athens (IV 17-20).** Under Demosthenes’ inspiring leadership |
* Gomme, loc. cit. 254.
* Plato, Menexenus 235d.
“The other counterpart of the sole speech of the Spartans in Athens
which was delivered when the Spartans apprehended the loss of three hundred
men, is a possible second speech of the Athenians in Sparta after the disastrous
plague (II 59.2). The Spartans would have made peace if the Athenians had
listened to their request; Pericles would have prevented a peace even if the
Spartans had listened to the Athenian ambassadors’ request.
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THUCYDIDES PELOPONNESIAN WAR
the Athenians had succeeded in defeating the Spartans at Pylos and
in cutting: off a considerable Spartan detachment on the island of
Sphacteria. The Spartan authorities, despairing of relieving that
detachment and anxious to avoid at all costs its capture or destruc-
tion, send an embassy to Athens to start negotiations for peace. The
ambassadors cannot help referring in their speech to their present
predicarnent or the Athenians’ great success. They do it by speaking
of the Athenians’ good luck: if you act wisely you will gain honor
and glory in addition to the good luck; they slyly suggest that the
Athenians’ victory did not bring them honor and glory. They warn
them not to trust that luck will always be on their side, for in
war luck is of utmost importance; if the Athenians do not make
peace now, and fail in their enterprises afterward, they will be
thought to owe their present success to luck and not to their
strength and intelligence (17.4-18.5). In this underhanded and
grudging manner they do admit the fact, which they denied in the
preceding sentences, that the Athenians owe their present success
to their virtue. Their lack of frankness and of pride is not redeemed
by graciousness. Their king Archidamus had claimed that they alone
because of their moderation do not become insolent in success and
that they cede less than others to adversity. Whatever may be
true of their moderation in success, in deed they ceded to adversity
after Pylos infinitely more than the Athenians did after their disaster
on Sicily.* ;
It is safe to conclude that at least in some cases the speakers
did not intend to convey the impression of themselves which their
"I 84.2, VIII 1.3. Lacking frankness from different motives explains the
second speech of the Corinthians in Sparta (I 120-124). By pointing out the
dangerous power of Athens in their preceding speech, they had contributed
to the Spartans’ decision to wage war against Athens. After the decision was
made they feared, not without cause (I 125.2), that the Spartans (and the
other allies) would not wage the war with sufficient vigor and speed to save
besieged Potidaea: “what a man plans in his confident belief in the future is
very unlike what he carries out in practice [for when it comes to practice,
fear intervenes].” The paraphrase is Gomme’s who characteristically omits the
thought which we put in brackets. The Corinthians trace the anticipated lack
of vigor and speed of their allies to the latter’s overconfidence in victory be-
cause they do not wish to speak of the lukewarmness of their allies’ concern
with Potidaea, i.e. of the difference of interest between Corinth and her allies
(cf. 120.2) and because they do not wish to speak unduly of their allies’ fear
of Athenian power; their fear of that fear explains why they speak as hope-
fully of the prospects of the war as they do.
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THE CITY AND MAN
speeches in fact convey. More generally, the speeches written by
Thucydides convey thoughts which belong, not to the speakers, but
to Thucydides. This is perfectly compatible with the possibility that
Thucydides, being a historian, has kept as closely as possible to
what the speakers actually said or that no opinion expressed in any
can be assumed to be Thucydides’ opinion. The wording of
the speeches surely is Thucydides’ own work. No one would go so
far as to say that the actual speakers began with identically the
same words with which their speeches, edited by Thucydides,
begin. For instance, the first speech occurring in the work opens
with “Just (Right)” and the second speech, which is a reply to the
first, opens with “Necessary (Compulsory ).” The thought indicated
by these two opening words taken together, the question of the
relation of right and necessity,*° of the difference, tension, perhaps
opposition between right and compulsion—a thought which is not
the theme of either speech—is Thucydides’ thought. This thought
so unobtrusively and so subtly indicated illumines everything which
preceded the two speeches and everything which follows them.
These two opening words indicate the point of view from which
Thucydides looks at the Peloponnesian war.
5. Dike
How does the Peloponnesian war come to sight in the light of the
distinction between right and compulsion? In Thucydides’ view the
Athenians compelled the Spartans to wage war against them; this
compulsion is the truest cause of the war, although the least men-
tioned one, as distinguished from the openly avowed causes. The
latter were the dissensions between Athens and Corinth concerning
Corcyra and Potidaea (I 23.6). Thucydides speaks first of the facts
constituting the avowed causes and then of the fact constituting
the unavowed cause, thus inverting the temporal order of the
events: the avowed causes are “first with regard to us” whereas the
true cause is hidden and kept hidden. But when one studies his
account of these avowed causes, one observes that they are as “true”
as the truest cause and in fact a part, even the decisive part, of the
latter. The truest cause of the war was that the Athenians, by
becoming great and thus putting the Spartans to fear, compelled
“Cf. Parmenides (Vorsokratiker, 7th ed.) fr. 8 lines 14 and 85.
I74
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
them to wage war. Yet the Athenians’ actions, at any rate in regard
to Corcyra, made them still greater or at least promised to make
them still greater than they were before those actions. The avowed
cause of the war which is inferior in truth to the unavowed cause
is different from the compulsion exercised by Athens’ growing
power, regardless of whether that compulsion was exercised before
the Corcyrean affair or not. It is the breach of the thirty-year treaty
between Sparta and her allies and Athens and her allies, i.e. an
unjust action, an action against right. “Compulsion” differs from
“right.”
Sn the same context in which Thucydides contrasts the truest
and least avowed cause with the openly avowed and less true causes
he says that the Athenians and the Peloponnesians broke the treaty
(I 23.4, 6). Just as he failed to make clear that the alternative to
“compulsion” is “right,” yet did make clear that the compulsion was
exercised by Athens, he fails to make clear who it was who violated
right, i.e. broke the treaty. No such violation to speak of had oc-
curred prior to the Athenian alliance with Corcyra. Both in conclud-
ing and in performing their treaty with Corcyra the Athenians were
anxious not to break their treaty with the Peloponnesians (I 44.1,
45.3, 49.4; cf. 35.1-4, 36.1). The Corinthians deny the contention
of the Corcyreans and the Athenians that the Corcyrean-Athenian
alliance is compatible with the thirty-year treaty (I 40.1-41.4; cf.
53.2, 4; 55.2). Thucydides, the best judge for whom one could wish,
does not decide the controversy. He says in effect that the Athenian
treaty with Corcyra, which was at war with Corinth (Sparta’s ally),
“compelled” the Athenians and the Corinthians to come to blows
(49.7). If it is impossible to decide whether the later treaty con-
flicted with the stipulations of the earlier treaty, the earlier treaty
might have been broken without either side having been guilty of
breach of treaty (cf. 52.3). The action of the Athenians in regard
to Potidaea surely did not constitute a breach of the treaty, which
fact did not prevent the Corinthians from claiming that it did (66-
67; 71.5). The Athenian ambassadors in Sparta as well as the
Spartan king deny that Athens had broken the treaty (78.4, 81.5,
85.2) whereas the Spartan ephor denies that the Athenians had in
any way refuted the charges against Athens and contends that
Athens had done wrong to Sparta’s allies. The Spartan assembly
agreed with the ephor (86-88). Thucydides makes clear that the
Spartans’ decision was caused less by the consideration of right than
176
THE CITY AND MAN
by compulsion, in other words, that the consideration of right was
not simply lacking in truth or irrelevant. The Spartans assert as
definitely that the Athenians had broken the treaty or had acted _
against right (118.3) as Pericles denies it (140.2, 141.1, 144.2, 145).
In Thucydides’ view there was at this time a “confusion” of the
treaty (146), i.e. obscurity as to whether the treaty had been vio-
lated or not but no breach of the treaty for which one side was
clearly responsible. On the other hand what happened in Plataeae
in the following spring was clearly a breach of the treaty, but the
rights and wrongs of the. case are not entirely clear, for whereas
the Thebans (Sparta’s ally) had invaded Plataeae (Athens’ ally)
while the treaty was still in force, yet there was already “confusion”
of the treaty, they had been called in by a respectable part of the
Plataean citizenry (II 5.5, 7, 7.1, III 65-66, V 17.2). With the ac-
tions in Plataeae the war had surely started, unless the Spartans
were willing to abandon their badly needed Theban ally to Athe-
nian revenge which they could not in reason be expected to do, and
the Spartan invasion of Attica which followed almost immediately
thus could appear to be in perfect accordance with right.
Six years after the outbreak of the war, after Pylos, the Spartan
envoys addressing the Athenian assembly say that it is unclear
which side started the war (IV 20.2). One could say that this
statement does not necessarily express the Spartans’ conviction but
was inevitable for them in the circumstances or in agreement with
the sly and humble character of their speech as a whole. But it is
also possible that after they had so conspicuously failed to bring
down the tyrant city, they were more willing than at the beginning
of the war to admit that the wrong was not entirely on the side of
the Athenians. In his account of the tenth year of the war (his
whole account covers twenty-one years), Thucydides states unam-
biguously in his own name that the war began with the Spartan
invasion of Attica (V 20.1), thus implying that it was Sparta which
had broken the treaty. At the same time he reproduces or imitates
the previous confusion by intimating, through what he says in the
same passage on the precise date of the beginning of the war, that
it was Thebes which broke the treaty by her attack on Plataeae.
He seems to suggest in the same breath that Sparta started the
war (broke the treaty) and that Thebes started the war (broke
the treaty). The crucial obscurity would seem to be removed by
the fact that the Spartans themselves, and apparently no one
176
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
else, were handicapped in the first part of the war (431-421) by
their awareness of having started the war unlawfully, for the
Thebans had attacked Plataeae while the treaty was still in force
and they themselves had failed to act according to the treaty in
another manner; even if Sparta had not broken the treaty by her
own actions, she would have broken it by not disassociating herself
from the action of Thebes. The situation was entirely different dur-
ing the second part of the war, for then there was not the slightest
doubt that the treaty had been broken by Athens (VII 18.2-3). In
the first part of the war, right was on the side of Athens while in
the second part right was on the side of Sparta. By coincidence,
in the first part of the war Thucydides was on the side of Athens
while in the second part he was to some extent even literally on
the side of the Peloponnesians (V 26.5).
If we survey the fate of the issue of right in Thucydides’ work,
we arrive at the result that he discloses the truth about this issue
least ambiguously near the center of his narrative. For the same
reason for which his initial remark (I 23.6) failed to make clear
that the alternative to “compulsion” is “right,” i.e. the keeping or
breaking of the treaty, and still less who it was who violated right,
he conceals as long as possible the fact that it was Sparta which
violated right. In saying, in his initial remark, that the Athenians
compelled the Spartans to wage war, he may be said to intimate
that the Spartans started the war; but he surely conceals entirely
the fact that Sparta broke the treaty. The strange character of his
treatment of Spartan guilt in the first part of the war becomes still
more visible when one contrasts it with his treatment of Athenian
guilt in the second part; in the latter case he has no hesitation
whatever in stating his own judgment without any ambiguity what-
ever (VI 105.1-2; cf. V 18.4). The treaties were solemnly sworn;
their breach was a violation of divine law. Thus the question of
who started the war is linked to the question concerning the divine
law.** When the Spartans were about to break the treaty and asked
the god in Delphi whether they should wage war, he encouraged
them, “as is said,” to wage it with all their might (I 118.3) without
warning them in any way against breaking the treaty. On the con-
“Cf. the references to the gods by whom the oaths had been sworn, in
I 71.5, 78.4, 86.5, The importance of oaths in the relations among’ cities ap-
pears most clearly from I 5.6 and context. ioe
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THE CITY AND MAN
trary by urging them to go to war the god seems to have expressed
his belief that in starting the war they would not break the treaty;
according to all ordinary criteria the gods seem to help the Spartans
in the first five years of the war (I 123.2, II 54.4-5). But when the
war lasted longer than the Spartans encouraged by the god may
have expected and especially after their misfortune at Pylos, they
became doubtful of whether Apollo's oracle gave a sufficient guar-
antee of the lawfulness of their war or perhaps whether the oracle
was not the work of the Delphian priestess rather than of Apollo
(cf. V 16.2; I 112.5). They began to believe that their misfortunes
had befallen them fittingly because of their violation of right. Still
later, contrasting their misfortunes in the first part of the war with
their excellent prospects regarding the second half, as well as their
injustice in the former with their clear justice in the latter, they
reasonably** believed that they had failed in the former because of
their injustice rather than their ineptitude and that they would
be victorious in the latter because of their justice.** There is no
question that the Spartans remained victorious in the second part
of the war and therefore in the war as a whole, and to this extent
not only Apollo's initial oracle but perhaps even the gods’ concern
with oaths may be said to have been vindicated (cf. V 26.4). But
for Thucydides it was apparently a question whether the connection
between injustice and defeat on the one hand and justice and
victory on the other was more than coincidence. As he puts it on a
different occasion, it was not the transgression of a superhuman
command which brought about a certain misfortune but it was the
misfortune which brought about the transgression (II 17.1-2; cf. II
53.3-4).
All this does not mean that the Spartans were wrong in regard-
ing themselves as guilty of the breach of the treaty and still less that
Thucydides regarded the question of right as irrelevant. Neither rest
and Greekness nor even war is possible without treaties among
cities, and the treaties would not be worth keeping in mind if the
partners could not be presumed to keep them; this presumption
must at least partly be based on past performance, i.e. on the justice
of the parties. To that extent fidelity to covenants may be said to be »
“ Cf. the similarly inspired remark of the Spartan Clearchus in Xenophon’s
Anabasis II 2.8. ;
“ Cf, VIE 18.1-2. Cf. the Spartan parallels in I 128.1 and V 16.2-3, and
the Athenian parallel in V 32.1.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
by nature right. But since this bond is for obvious reasons not sufli-
cient, men have recourse to divine sanctions. Both oaths and treaties
are a kind of speeches which must be judged, as all other speeches
must be judged, in the light of the deeds. Treaties form a part of
Thucydides’ work just as do the speeches of the actors. The treaties
differ from the speeches in two ways:. they are quoted verbatim
whereas the speeches are not, and whereas the speeches are de-
livered from one side of the conflict, the treaties represent an agree-
ment among the conflicting parties. The treaties may thus be said
to reflect on the political plane Thucydides’ own impartial speech.
To repeat, Thucydides distinguishes the truest and least avowed
cause of the war from the openly avowed and less true causes. The
truest cause was the Athenians’ compelling the Spartans to wage
war against them and the most avowed cause was the Athenians’
alleged breach of the treaty. One sees again how much Thucydides’
primary point of view is Spartan. The truest cause not being easily
avowable by the Spartans** and the most avowed cause being rather
weak, the Spartans had to think of strengthening the latter in order
to have a cause which would be very strong (I 126.1). For this
purpose they used two arguments or sets of arguments, the first
taken from sacral law and the second being merely political. Justi-
fied by the Spartan procedure, Thucydides treats the two in com-
plete separation from one another. He sets forth and explains the
Spartan argument taken from sacral law and the Athenian rejoinder
which is taken from the same field at much greater length than the
Spartan political argument and the Athenian reply.** This is all the
more remarkable since one of the political arguments—that which
dealt with the Athenian decree regarding Megara—appears to have
been of much greater importance than any other cause except the
truest.“ Yet in contradistinction to the political argument in ques-
tion, the arguments dealing with sacral things had a clear basis in
law. The Spartans demanded of the Athenians that they cleanse
themselves from a pollution which they had contracted while
quenching Cylon’s attempt, apparently backed by Apollo, to make
“Cf. I 86.5.
“As appears from I 189 beginning, I 126-188 (about 325 lines) are
devoted to the arguments taken from sacral law; if one insists on calling the
passage dealing with Themistocles (135.8-138 end) an excursus, one may
deduct 97 lines; the political arguments and Pericles’ reply to them. (139.1-4,
140.84, 144.2) take at most 36 lines.
“J 139.1, 140.4.
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THE CITY AND MAN
himself tyrant of Athens: the demand had the subsidiary advantage
of casting aspersion on the ritual purity of Pericles, Sparta’s most
determined opponent (126-127; cf. I 13.6). The Athenians, acting
probably on Pericies’ own advice, replied with the demand that the
Spartans cleanse themselves from the two pollutions they had con-
tracted, the first in an action against some Helots and the second
while punishing their king Pausanias for his attempt to betray the
Greeks to the Persian king. The Spartan demand, especially if it is
considered in the light of the excellent Athenian reply (not one but
two pollutions and both more recent than the Athenian pollution),
is no doubt ridiculous in the eyes of Thucydides; “here the lion
laughed,” says an old commentator. But apart from the fact that
this story will prove to be not the only one bringing to light ridicu-
fous features of Sparta, the ridiculous character of the Spartan de-
mand does not entitle one to find it strange that Thucydides
attaches so much greater weight to it than, say, to the Megarian
decree, nor that “a special embassy should have been sent with this
idie demand, however superstitious the Spartans may have been.”*”
To draw a line between superstition and religion in a universally
valid manner is not an easy task, especially after natural theology
has ceased to be the generally accepted basis of discussion; nor is it
easy to draw a line between genuine religious concern and the
hypocritical use of religion in Spartans or in others; to say nothing
of the fact that taking enlightenment for granted is tantamount to
transforming enlightenment into superstition.
‘One must consider the Cylon story also as part of its broad
context, i.e. of Thucydides’ whole account, given in the first book,
of the causes of the Peloponnesian war. The first book consists of
the following parts:
I. Introduction (ch. 1-23): from the most ancient times till
431.
Il. The openly avowed causes (ch. 24-88): from 439 till the
first half of 432.
III. The truest cause (ch. 89-118): from 479 till 439.
IV. Continuation of II (ch. 119-125): second half of 432.
V. The causes meant to strengthen the openly avowed causes
and continuation of IV (ch, 126-146): from ca. 630 till the
end of 432.
“Gomme, loc. cit. 447.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAB
The transitions from I to II, from II to III, and from IV to V are
returns from later events to earlier ones. In particuiar ‘Thucydides
tums from the openly avowed causes which are later in time and
less true to the truest and teast avowed cause which is first in time.
From this fact taken by itself we are led to expect that the arche-
ology which begins at the beginning is meant to bring to light the
simply first cause or causes (as distinguished from the first cause
of the Peloponnesian war) which as such are the simply true and
simply “unspoken” or immanifest causes. This expectation is con-
firmed by the study of the archeology. Thucydides could not have
written the archeology if he had not “returned” from the present to
the beginnings in a number of stages; his order of presentation
imitates in a manner his order of finding. The central part of the
first book consists of two sections: (1) the Athenian hegemony
(ch. 89-96) and (2) the Athenian empire (ch. 97-118); the Athe-
nian empire rather than the Athenian hegemony is the truest cause
of the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides indicates the importance of
the second section by introducing it with a preface (97.2). In that
preface he is completely silent about the fact (which would have
borne being restated) that he is about to lay bare the truest cause
of the Peloponnesian war. Instead he presents that second section
(which deals with events that occurred between ca. 476 and 440)
in the first place as a kind of supplement to available accounts of
the preceding epochs, if not as an improved version of Hellanicus’
chronicle, and only secondarily as an exhibition of how the Athe-
nian empire was established. If we turn from what one may call
Thucydides’ second preface to his first preface—his statement on
the character of his whole work (1 20-22)—we observe to our sur-
prise that there too he is completely silent about the subject of
“cause.” He presents there his “quest for the truth” as quest for what
was truly done and truly said, i.e. for the true facts, and not for the
true causes.** It also deserves mention that while Herodotus men-
tions “cause” in the opening of his work, the “scientific historian”
“ As for the distinction between “fact” and “cause” cf. I 23.4—5. Perhaps
the most important difference between the remark on the Athenian tyrannicide
in I 20.2 and the repetition of that subject in VI 54-59 is precisely the fact
that only in the latter is the cause of the tyrannicide made clear (cf. 54.1,
57.3, 59. 1). Contrast V 53 (the central event of the thirteenth nee about
a “cause” which was merely a “pretense” with I 23.6.
181
THE CITY AND MAN
Thucydides does not.‘* In these manners he indicates the gravity of
the question regarding the true causes—of a question which other-
wise could seem to be (as it is for the scientific historian) a matter
of course.
6. Ananke
From what has been said, it follows that the question of the true
cause must be understood in the light of the distinction between
Right and Compulsion. The Spartans believed that their injustice
had caused their adversity in the first part of the war. Thucydides
will only believe that that Spartan belief might have had an adverse
effect on their conduct of the war. This does not mean that right
belongs as it were to the sphere of mere seeming and only compul-
sion to the sphere of being, or that right and compulsion are simply
opposites. Sparta indeed broke the treaty, but she was compelled
to do so because she saw that a large part of Greece was already
subject to the Athenians, hence feared that they would become still
stronger and hence was forced to stop them before it was too late.*°
Compulsion excuses; it justifies an act which in itself would be
unjust (cf. IV 92.5). The Athenians on the other hand, it seems,
acted unjustly; they were not compelled to increase their power
“In I 1.38 Thucydides seems to say that no clear and certain knowledge
of what happened prior to the Peloponnesian war is available (cf. also I 20
beginning) yet he cannot possibly mean this, for he gives a clear account at
least of what happened in the decades immediately preceding that war; above
all, his very attempt to prove the superiority of the Peloponnesian war to the
earlier wars requires clear and certain knowledge of the earlier wars; likewise
his quest for the causes of the Peloponnesian war, i.e. for things preceding
that war, would not make sense if his remark in I 1.3 were taken literally. But
Thucydides was not illiterate. One must then consider the import of the
literally understood passage. If there is no clear and certain knowledge of
what happened prior to the Peloponnesian war, there cannot be clear and
certain knowledge of the supremacy of the Peloponnesian war; the belief in
that supremacy is only a prejudice just like the belief in the supremacy of any
other war on the part of the contemporaries of that war (I 21.2). If there is
no clear and certain knowledge of what happened prior to the Peloponnesian
war, there cannot be clear and certain knowledge of its causes, let alone of its
truest cause; those causes are veiled in mystery; it is at least as reasonable
to give an account of them in Homeric terms as in Thucydidean terms.
“1 23.6, 86.5, 88, II 8.5.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
ever more (for instance, by allying themselves with the Corcyreans
or by embarking on the Sicilian expedition); they were prompted
not by compulsion but by hybris (cf. IV 98.5-6). This would not
necessarily mean that they lost the war on that account. Yet partly
the Athenians themselves and partly Thucydides through his narra-
tive show that Athens was herself compelled to increase her power
or was prompted by fear of the Persians and of the Spartans to
found her empire and to enlarge it; she was compelled to become
the tyrant city; she was compelled to compel Sparta to wage war
against her. In their speech in Sparta the Athenians go considerably
further. They claim that they were compelled to found their empire
and to bring it to its present form above all by fear, then also by
honor, and later also by interest (I 75.3). If being induced by
honor or glory and especially by interest is regarded as compulsory
and participating in the exculpation conferred by the compulsory, it
is hard to see how any war or how any acquisition and exercise of
tyrannical rule by one city over others can ever be unjust.*! Accord-
ingly when they repeat the three motives which compel cities to
become imperial, the Athenians change the order by speaking of
“honor, fear and interest.” They go so far as to say that Athens has
merely followed what was always established, namely, that the
stronger keep down the weaker, i.e. that recourse to fear is not
needed at all in order to justify empire; the innovation lies not with
the Athenians but with the Spartans who now suddenly have re-
course to “the just speech” which has not hitherto deterred anyone
strong enough from aggrandizing himself (1 76.2). The Spartans do
not contest the Athenian thesis. To discuss generalities of this kind
would be in their eyes to exhibit excessive cleverness in useless
matters (cf. I 84.3). On the proper occasion Pericles himself will
state the Athenian thesis in Athens herself (II 63.2). But the Athe-
nians are not the only ones who state it (cf. IV 61.5). On the other
hand, the Athenian Euphemus, speaking in Camarina—perhaps
reduced to euphemism because the situation of the Athenians in
Sicily was not as simple as their situation before the outbreak of the
war or on Melos—while not avoiding the comparison of the imperial
city to a tyrant, justifies both the Athenians’ empire and their
© With a view to IV 98.5 one would have to say that on the basis of what
the Athenian ambassadors in Sparta assert, the very possibility. of hybris and
hence of divine law does not exist. are
183
THE CITY AND MAN
Sicilian expedition by their concern with their salvation or security.
alone, by their fear alone.‘?
Even if according to the instruction silently conveyed by Thu-
cydides’ narrative all cities which have the required power act in
accordance with the Athenians’ thesis regarding the compulsory
power of interest, it would perhaps not necessarily follow that they
are in fact compelled to act in this manner. The issue is decided ‘in
the dialogue between the Athenians and the Melians. During the
peace between the two parts of the Peloponnesian war, the Athe-
nians resolved to make themselves masters of the island of Melos,
a Spartan colony but neutral in the war because of Athens’ naval
power. Before beginning the assault, the Athenians make an attempt
to persuade the Melians to come over to their side. Just as, imme-
diately before the outbreak of the war, Pericles did not permit the
Spartan ambassadors to address the Athenian people (II 12.2; cf. IV
22) because he feared that they might deceive it, the Melian gov-
ernment takes the same precaution against the same danger. In
order not to deceive even the Melian government, the Athenian
ambassadors propose that they not make a long speech to which the
Melians would reply with a long speech, but that their exchange
should have the character of a dialogue.** The Athenian ambassa-
dors talk as if they had been listening to Socrates’ censure of Pro-
tagoras or Gorgias. Through their proposal Thucydides surely throws
new light on the speeches with which his work abounds and at the
same time stresses the unique importance of the dialogue which
occurred on Melos. The dialogue takes place behind closed doors.
Yet in the Melians’ view it is a dialogue which, owing to the
presence of the Athenian army, cannot lead to agreement but only
to either war or their surrender into slavery; they have no hope
that they might persuade the Athenians to go back to where they
belong. According to the Athenians it is indeed the present facts
which the Melians can see with their eyes, namely, the Athenian
forces, which must be the starting point of the dialogue about how
the Melians can be saved from present danger. The Melians cannot
“VI 83.2, 4; 85.1; 87.2. Cf. the limited meaning of compulsion according
to which it excludes interest and the like in VII 57.
“ We consider here only the speeches not the butchery; what Thucydides
thought about that deed may be inferred from his judgment on the intention to
butcher the Mytileneans (III 36.4, 6 and 49.4).
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
but admit this. The Athenians next determine the principle of the
deliberation. The issue is not what is just but what is feasible—what
the Athenians can do to the Melians and the Melians can do to the
Athenians; questions of right arise only when the power to compel
is more or less equal on both sides; if there is so great inequality as
between Athens and Melos, the stronger does what he can and the
weaker yields. The Athenians have no doubt that.the Melians with
whom they converse, i.e. the leading men as distinguished from the
people, know the truth of the principle which they stated, yet they
prove to be mistaken. The Melians are however compelled to argue
on the basis of interest as distinguished from right. Arguing on this
basis they remind the Athenians of the fact that there is an interest
common to Melos and Athens: he who is today the stronger may be
the weaker at some future time and then his former victims or their
friends will take a terrible revenge on him for what he has done
to the weaker in the heyday of his strength. The Athenians are not
frightened by that prospect, for the power which will defeat them
in the future will think of its interest rather than of vindictive
justice and the Athenians will be as prudent to cede to their victor’s
interest as, they hope, the Melians will be at the present time; an
imperial power must think not of its situation under its future
victor but of its present subjects who indeed, in case of successful
rebellion, will think of nothing but revenge; it is precisely in order
to deprive their island subjects of all hope of resistance to Athens’
naval power that the Athenians must become masters of Melos;
precisely Melos’ peacefully becoming an ally of Athens is that com-
mon interest to which the Melians appeal: the preservation of Melos
as an ally of Athens is profitable to both Melos and Athens. The
Melians are reduced to speechlessness, for their question whether
the Athenians will not be satisfied with the Melians being their
friends instead of their enemies and at the same time unallied with
either Athens or Sparta is absurd; even assuming that friendship
and neutrality in the same respect are not mutually exclusive, the
Melians surely also wish to be friends of Sparta, Athens’ enemy.
The Athenians cannot make this point at this time in the debate
because they are not at war with Sparta. But the Melians under-
stand the situation sufficiently so as to limit themselves to offer
continued neutrality rather than friendship: can the Athenians not
tolerate neutrals? After all, there is a difference between the Athe-
nians subjugating cities which are their colonies or otherwise have
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become their dependencies and then rebelled, and their subjugating
a city which never belonged to them. They thus surreptitiously
bring in the consideration of right as distinguished from interest.
The Athenians counter this argument by denying that there is a
difference between these two kinds of cities as far as right is con-
cerned; surely the cities subject to Athens believe that their sub-
jection is due to Athens’ superior power; the important distinction
is to be made from the point of view of Athenian interest as dis-
tinguished from right; accordingly one must distinguish not between
legitimate subjects of Athens and neutrals, but between mainland
cities and island cities; the mere fact that there are island cities not
subject to Athens is taken as a sign of Athens’ deficient naval power
and is hence detrimental to Athens; the Athenians do not fear, as
the Melians advise them to do, that as a consequence of their action
against Melos all hitherto neutral cities will ally themselves with
Athens’ enemies, for the mainland cities know that they are not
threatened by Athens whereas all island cities are a threat to Athens.
When speaking of the mainland cities the Athenians had mentioned,
somewhat inadvertently, the “freedom” of these cities as distin-
guished from the actual or potential condition of the islanders. The
Melians take this as an admission that if they yield they will be
enslaved. They are set to defend their freedom at all costs. By
taking up the issue “freedom-slavery,” they do not in violation of
the rule of the dialogue introduce the issue of right; they remain
within the sphere of interest in so far as it is obviously to a man’s
or a City’s interest to be free, yet they enlarge that sphere in so far
as freedom is also something noble; they feel that they would be
base cowards by not risking everything for their freedom. The
Athenians deny that yielding to much greater power is disgraceful;
not to yield would show a lack of good sense or of moderation—of
that virtue of which men of ‘Spartan blood must be proud. The
Melians tacitly admit that yielding to much greater power is not
disgraceful but they question that.the Athenians’ power is much
greater than theirs. Surely, the Athenians are more numerous than
they but the outcome of a war does not depend merely on number;
so they have hope. The Athenians and Melians thus agree that the
issue is not whether one should act nobly or basely but whether
there is ground of hope for the Melians. The Melians are hopeful.
The Athenians warn them against hoping; not their small number
but their total weakness, which is quite manifest, makes it hopeless
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
for them to risk everything for the sake of their independence; they
can still be saved by human means; the sensible rulers of Melos
will not commit the mistake of the many who, when the manifest
hopes fail, have recourse to the immanifest ones supplied by sooth-
sayers and oracles which are surely ruinous. Thereupon the Melians
reveal the grounds of their hope and thus the whole extent of their
disagreement with the Athenians. Two things, they say, decide the
issue of wars, power and chance; as for chance it depends (to some
extent or altogether) on the divine, and the divine favors the just;
as for the deficient power of the Melians, it will be strengthened by
the alliance with the Spartans, who will come to the rescue of Melos
if only for sheer shame. The question of whether the Melians act
nobly by resisting the Athenians has been reduced to the question
of whether they act wisely in doing so; one cannot act nobly by
acting foolishly. Whether they act foolishly or not is now seen to
depend entirely on how well grounded is their hope in the divine
on the one hand and in the Spartans on the other. The Melians
had not mentioned the divine when speaking of power. To the
Melians’ hope for divine help to the just, the Athenians oppose the
following view of the divine and of justice. Both the divine and
the human are compelled by their natures without any qualification
each to rule over whatever is weaker than it; this law has not been
laid down by the Athenians nor were they the first to act in accord-
ance with it, but they found it in being and they will leave it in
being for the future, forever, in the certainty that the Melians and
all others would act on it if they had the same power as the
Athenians. (One could say that according to the Athenians this law
is the true divine law, the law of the interplay of motion and rest,
of compulsion and right, compulsion obtaining among unequals
and right obtaining among cities of more or less equal power.) That
this law obtains among men, the Athenians claim to know evidently,
whereas its being in force in regard to the divine is for them only
a matter of opinion. This does not mean that they are not quite
certain whether the Melians’ belief in just gods may not have some
foundation, but rather that they are not quite certain whether the
divine exists or that they do not wish to deny its existence. Differ-
ently stated, the Athenians deny that they act impiously for in
acting as they do they imitate the divine; in addition, the divine
could not have forbidden the stronger to rule over the weaker
because the stronger is compelled by natural necessity to rule over
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the weaker. What is true of divine help is true also of Spartan help.
The Melians must be inexperienced and foolish indeed if they
believe that the Spartans will help them for sheer shame. The
Spartans are decent enough among themselves in that, in their
relations with one another, they comply with the customs of their
country; but in their relations with other men they, more obviously
than other men, regard as noble what is pleasant, and as just what
is expedient. (The Spartans behave habitually toward non-Spartans
as the Athenians behaved among themselves during the worst times
of the plague—II 53.3.) The Melians question the Athenians’ view of
Sparta (as distinguished from the Athenians’ view of the gods)
at least to the extent that they assert that precisely self-interest, as
distinguished from the noble and the just, will induce the Spartans
to come to their help. The Melians and Athenians have now reached
agreement as to the necessity of disregarding completely what we
would call all religious and moral considerations. The Athenians
rejoin that self-interest induces men to act in the manner in which
the Melians hope that the Spartans will act only when it is safe to
do so; the Spartans are therefore the least likely to gamble; and to
come to the rescue of Melos is obviously a very great gamble. The
Melians cannot deny the notorious fact that the Spartans are very
cautious men. From here on they can speak only in the optative
mood. The Athenians are justified in saying that the Melians have
not said a single word which would give support to their confi-
dence; their strongest arguments are mere hopes. The Athenians
conclude with a sober warning: it is sheer folly to call the Melians’
becoming a tribute-paying ally of Athens a disgraceful act; the
Melians will be truly disgraced if, by foolishly compelling the Athe-
nians to fight and defeat them, they will bring it about that they
all will be killed and their women and children be sold into slavery.
After having deliberated among themselves, the Melian rulers repeat
their rejection of the Athenian proposal; they repeat that they trust
in chance, which depends on the divine, and in the Spartans. The
Athenians leave them with the remark that they are the only ones
who regard the future things as more evident than things seen, and
who behold the unevident by virtue of wishing it as already oc-
curring; their ruin will be proportionate to their trust in Sparta
and in chance and in hopes. As appears from the sequel, the
Athenian prediction comes true.
The Melians are defeated in speech before they are defeated in
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ie ual
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
deed. One must blush to say so, but one is compelled to admit
to oneself that in Thucydides’ view the Melians’ resistance to. the
Athenians’ demand was a foolish act and the fate of the Melians
is therefore not tragic. The last doubt which may remain is removed
by what he says about the Chians’ failure in their revolt against
‘Athens. The Chians were much more powerful and wealthy than
the Melians, but, being sober or moderate, they were as concerned
with safety as the Spartans. By revolting against the Athenians
they may seem to have disregarded their safety or to have acted
irrationally, but this is not the case. They took that risk when
according to all ordinary considerations it was wise to take it:
at the time of the revolt they had many good allies on whose
help they could count and, as the Athenians themselves had to
admit, Athens’ cause was almost hopeless as a consequence of the
Sicilian disaster; no one could be blamed for not having foreseen
Athens’ extraordinary resilience.** One can explain Thucydides’ im-
plicit judgment on the action of the Melians in two ways which
are not mutually exclusive. The city may and must demand self-
sacrifice from its citizens; the city itself however cannot sacrifice
itself; a city may without disgrace accept even under compulsion
the overlordship of another city which is much more powerful; this
is not to deny of course that death or extinction is to be preferred to
enslavement proper. There is a certain similarity between the city
and the individual; just as the individual, the city cannot act nobly
or virtuously if it lacks the necessary equipment, i.e. power, or, in
other words, virtue is useless without sufficient armament.® If the
action of the Melians was foolish, one must wonder whether this
fact throws any light on the most striking reason of their action, i.e.
their view that the gods help the just or harm the unjust. This view
is the Spartan view (cf. VII 18.2). It is opposed to the Athenian
view as stated most clearly in the dialogue with the Melians. The
Melian dialogue leaves one wondering whether on the basis of the
common belief one would not have to state Thucydides’ view by
saying that trust in help from the gods is like trust in help from
“VII 24.4-5. Cf. with this passage II 40.1: Cleon judges the “mistake”
of the Mytileneans from the point of view of justice; Thucydides judges the
“mistake” of the Chians from the point of view of safety or prudence. Cf. IV
108.3-4. Cf. also the case of the Orchomenians (V 61.5).
* Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1178a23-33; Xenophon, Anabasis II 1.12.
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THE CITY AND MAN
the Spartans or that the gods are as little concerned with justice
in their dealings with human beings as the Spartans are in their
dealings with foreigners; the fact that the gods’ existence is not
explicitly discussed between the Athenians and the Melians does
not prove that it was of no concern to Thucydides. Taking the ques-
tion of right entirely by itself, i.e. disregarding the gods altogether,
one may say that there is a kinship between injustice and motion
and between justice and rest,°* but that just as rest presupposes
motion and issues in motion, justice presupposes injustice and
issues in injustice. It is precisely for this reason that human beings
seek support for right in the gods or that the question of right
cannot be considered entirely apart from the question concerning
the gods. In the Melian dialogue the Athenians remain victorious.
There is no debate in Thucydides’ work in which the Spartan or
Melian view defeats the Athenian view. After their surrender to the
Spartans, the Plataeans are permitted to defend themselves against
the capital charge of not having helped the Spartans in the war;
they appeal to right and to the gods. Their worst enemies, the
Thebans, acting as their accusers, answer them on the ground of
right without referring to the gods. The issue of necessity or ex-
pediency, as distinguished from that of right, and in particular the
issue whether it is expedient for the Spartans and their allies to kill
the Plataeans, is not raised. The Plataeans are killed, the Spartans
having identified, according to the Plataeans’ contention, the just
with what is immediately profitable to them (III 56.3), for it was
profitable to them to give in to the Thebans’ savage hatred for the
Plataeans; the Spartans act in accordance with what the Athenians
told the Melians to be the Spartan way of acting (cf. III 68.4).
Quite different were the proceedings in Athens regarding the fate
of the Mytileneans who had failed in their revolt against their
Athenian ally. Whereas in the Peloponnesian camp there was no one
to oppose the killing of the helpless Plataeans, in Athens there
was a debate as to what should be done to the helpless Mytileneans.
Cleon, who favors the butchery, is the one who appeals to right:
the Mytileneans acted most unjustly, they preferred force to justice,
they were prompted by hybris, and the execution of all of them is
nothing but their just punishment (III 39.3-6); in addition, in this
case at any rate the just perfectly agrees with what is profitable
“Cf. Aristotle, Eth. Nic. 1104b24-25 and Isaiah 30.15-16. Cf. Pindar,
Pyth. VII beg.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
in the long run for Athens. Diodotus, who opposes the killing of the
Mytileneans, argues entirely on the ground of what is profitable
for Athens to do to the Mytileneans; he does not question her right
to kill them all (III 44, 47.5-6). Similarly it is the harsh Spartan
ephor who was responsible for Sparta’s breaking the treaty and
not the nice king Archidamus who appeals above all to right (I 86);
and the Athenians, who entered the first part of the war with justice
on their side, never mention their justice and still less boast of it. It
seems that the case for right or the appeal to right is made only by
those Thucydidean speakers who are either completely helpless
or else unjust.*’ This does not mean, to repeat, that the principle
stated most forcefully by the Athenians on Melos is incompatible
with justice in the sense of fidelity to covenants; it is perfectly com-
patible with such fidelity; it is only incompatible with covenants
which would limit a city’s aspirations for all future times; but such
were not the covenants with which Thucydides had to be seriously
concerned.
The Athenians’ assertion of what one may call the natural right
of the stronger as a right which the stronger exercises by natural
necessity is not a doctrine of Athenian imperialism; it is a universal
doctrine; it applies to Sparta for instance as well as to Athens. It is
not refuted by the facts of the Spartans’ moderation, of their satis-
faction with what they possess, or of their unwillingness to go to
war. In other words, the natural right of the stronger does not lead
in all cases to expansionism. There are limits beyond which expan-
sion is no longer safe. There are powers which are “saturated.” The
Spartans were as “imperialist” as the Athenians; only their empire
was so to speak invisible because their empire had been established
much earlier than the Athenian empire and had reached its natural
limit; it was therefore no longer an object of surprise and offense.
By overlooking this fact, one moves in the direction of the supreme
folly committed during World War II when men in high places
acted on the assumption that there was a British Empire and British
imperialism but no Russian Empire and Russian imperialism be-
cause they held that an empire consists of a number of countries
separated by salt water. Chios which was second only to Sparta in
moderation, was second only to Sparta regarding the number of her
slaves. Sparta was moderate because she had grave troubles with
"For the second case cf. Republic 866c3-d1.
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THE CITY AND MAN
her Helots; the Helots made her moderate.™* Thucydides just as his
Athenians on Melos ‘did not know of a strong city which failed to
rule a weak city when it was to the former's interest to do so, merely
for reasons of moderation, i.e. independently of calculation.
7% The Dialogue on Melos and the Disaster in Sicily
Yet is not precisely according to Thucydides’ presentation the Athe-
nian dialogue with the Melians followed by the Athenian disaster
in Sicily? Is that disaster, which included the killing by the sword
or by hunger of thousands and thousands of Athenian prisoners, not
the punishment for the Athen‘ans’ speech and deed on Melos? Is
it not its consequence whether mediated by the gods or not? This
thought is perhaps the best example of what Thucydides meant by
stories delightful for the ear, for he makes it quite clear that how-
ever unjust, daring, or immoderate the attempt to conquer Sicily
may have been, its failure was not due to its injustice or daring;
despite their deed and speech on Melos, the Athenians’ Sicilian
expedition could well have succeeded. Nor can one say that the
Melian dialogue, revealing the abandonment of Pericles’ political
principle by the Athenians, prepared the abandonment by them of
Pericles’ cautious war policy. While Pericles might never have said
what the Athenians said on Melos and while he might not have
regarded the Athenians’ action against Melos as expedient, his politi-
cal principle did not differ from that of those Athenians (II 62.2,
63.2). The Sicilian expedition ran counter to Pericles’ view of how
the war should be conducted but Thucydides never says that Peri-
cles’ views were always sound. On the contrary, to repeat, he re-
garded the Sicilian expedition as perfectly feasible (I 144.1; II 65.7,
11; cf. also VI 11.1). According to him, the Sicilian expedition
failed because of the fundamental defect of post-Periclean, as dis-
tinguished from Periclean, domestic politics; after Pericles there was
no longer among the leading men that perfect harmony between
private interest and public interest that was characteristic of Peri-
cles; the concern with private honor and private gain prevailed.
Thanks to his manifest superiority Pericles became as it were natu- .
rally the first man, whereas none of his successors possessed that
superiority, but each had to fight for his place in the sun and there-
fore was compelled to make concessions to the demos which were
* VIII 40.2 and 24.4. Cf. I 101.2, 118.2, IV 41.8, 80.3-4, V 14.8.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPANNESIAN WAR
detrimental to the city. It was the overriding concern with private
interest which ruined the Sicilian expedition and ultimately caused
the loss of the war (II 65.7-12). Post-Periclean Athens lacked that
singular public-spiritedness which was the honor of Athens from
the time of the Persian war until the age of Pericles (I 7086, 8;
741-2). As Pericles makes clear in the beautiful sentences of his
Funeral Speech, Athens more than any other city gave free rein
to the individual’s development toward graceful manysidedness or
self-sufficiency or permitted him to be a genuine individual: so that
he could be infinitely superior as a citizen to the citizens of any
other city. In what is in Thucydides’ work his farewell speech,
Pericles reminds his fellow citizens of the necessity to be devoted
wholeheartedly to their city. In this respect there appears to be
complete agreement between the statesman and the historian. Thu-
cydides is concerned above everything else with the cities (the
Athenians, the Spartaris and so on) as distinguished from the indi-
viduals, therefore with the warlike or peaceful relations of the city
with other cities rather than with their inner structure; therefore
he deals with the lives and deaths of the individuals only from the
point of view of the cities to which they belong.
Those who contend that there is a connection between the
Melian dialogue and the Sicilian disaster must have in mind a con-
nection between the two events which Thucydides intimates rather
than sets forth explicitly by speaking of the emancipation of private
interest in post-Periclean Athens. The Melian dialogue shows noth-
ing of such an emancipation. But it contains the most unabashed
denial occurring in Thucydides’ work of a divine law which must be
respected by the city or which moderates the city’s desire for
“having more.” The Athenians on Melos, in contradistinction to
Callicles or Thrasymachus, limit themselves indeed to asserting the
natural right of the stronger with regard to the cities; but are Calli-
cles and Thrasymachus not more consistent than they? Can one
encourage, as even Pericles and precisely Pericles does, the city’s
desire for “having more” than other cities without in the long run
encouraging the individual's desire for “having more” than his fellow
citizens?®® Pericles was indeed dedicated wholeheartedly to the
© The intermediate stage between the city and the individuals is the politi-
cally most relevant groups within the city, the powerful or rich and the
multitude. Their antagonism culminating in civil war is between the antagonism
culminating in war among the cities and the antagonism culminating in
treason and the like among individuals,
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THE CITY AND MAN
common good of the city but to its common good unjustly under-
stood. He did not realize that the unjust understanding of the com-
mon good is bound to undermine dedication to the common good
however understood. He had not given sufficient thought to the
precarious character of the harmony between private interest and
public interest; he had taken that harmony too much for granted.
Thucydides looks at the deaths of men from the point of view
of the ‘cities to which they belong. He notes carefully what was
done to the dead after the battles; their seemly burial is the final
act of their city’s care for its sons; by their death they do not cease,
and yet they cease, to belong to their city: Hades is not divided
into cities. The customary practice becomes the theme in Pericles’
Funeral Speech, since it was an ancient Jaw in Athens to bring the
bodies of the fallen soldiers home for public and common burial
and to have the fallen soldiers praised immediately after the burial
by an outstanding citizen (II 34.1, 35.3). Pericles does not approve
of the law which instituted these funeral speeches because of the
difficulty in satisfying the listeners: for some of them no praise is
sufficient and others regard the praise as exaggerated. One cannot
praise highly enough those who brought the supreme sacrifice and
yet the praise must remain credible. In addition, not all fallen
soldiers led equally praiseworthy lives—some were even good-for-
nothings (II 42.3), and died an equally praiseworthy death. Pericles
overcomes the difficulty by praising above all the city, or the cause
for which all of them died equally. It is the praise of the city of
Athens and of what it stands for on which the fame of Pericles’
Funeral Speech is founded. Not so much the city as city as a city of
the stature of Athens can demand the supreme sacrifice. Yet all
cities demand it equally and in many cases are obeyed with no less
dedication than the city of Athens: the noble death for the father-
land is not the Athenians’ nor even the Greeks’ preserve. And even
the Athenian’s death for his fatherland which is of unique glory is
not exhausted by its being a death for Athens. Thucydides draws
our attention to this difficulty by making his Pericles avoid the
words “death,” “dying,” or “dead bodies”: only once does his Pericles
speak in the Funeral Speech of death, and then only in the expres-_
sion “unfelt death” (II 43.6).°° Accordingly, in the allusion to the
This was imitated by Plato in his Menexenus; Plato goes even further
than Thucydides’ Pericles. Contrast with this not only the Gettysburg Address _
but even the Epitaphioi of Demosthenes, Hyperides, and Lysias,
194
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
climactic event of dying that Pericles makes, he causes it to last only
a very brief moment.** The glory of the city of Athens is to make
the individuals, the survivors, both the soldiers and the mourners,
oblivious of the agonies of their comrades and their beloved. But
Pericles is not a Spartan addressing Spartans, as he had made
abundantly clear through the bulk of his speech. He cannot al-
together avoid at least mzntioning the grief of the individuals who
lost their sons, brothers or husbands. The callousness with which
he speaks of, or rather alludes to, the grief especially of the aged
parents who lost their only son, cannot easily be surpassed. He is
punished appropriately. To the widows he can say no more than
to address to them this statesmanlike admonition: they should be as
good as women can be, and that wife is best who is least mentioned
for good or for ill in male society. His wife was the famous Aspasia.
The statesman who looked at life and death only from the point of
view of the city forgets his private life. It is most fitting that in
Thucydides’ narrative the praise of Pericles should precede Pericles’
death by thirty months (II 65.6). It is no less fitting that the Funeral
Speech is followed immediately by Thucydides’ account of the
plague—an account which abounds with mentions of death, dead,
dying, and corpses and which deals with an event that brought
home to everyone the limitations of the city. Thucydides does not
mention the fact that Pericles lost two of his sons and the largest
part of his kin and friends through the plague and died as a con-
sequence of the plague. His last speech, delivered under the impact
of the plague, takes up the subject of “private calamities” with
greater force than the two earlier speeches. That speech is imme-
diately followed by Thucydides’ praise of Pericles the guiding theme
of which is the conflict between the private and the public, Thu-
cydides praises especially Pericles’ foresight in regard to the war:
his foresight was limited to the war; he could not have foreseen the
plague but he did not foresee or consider sufficiently the things
which were brought home to his fellow citizens and even to him
by the plague (II 65.6; cf. 64.1-2).
To return to the question concerning the connection between
the Melian dialogue and the Sicilian disaster, that connection is
established by the fact that it is in the long run impossible to en-
“II 42.4. Cf. also 43.2 beginning where he seems to deny that death is
each one’s own while asserting that “the ageless [not “immortal”] praise” is.
each one’s own. ;
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courage the city’s desire for “having more” at the expense of other
' gities without encouraging the desire of the individual for “having
more” at the expense of his fellow citizens. This reasoning seems
to support the “Spartan” praise of moderation and of the divine law.
Yet we have seen that this praise is not accepted by Thucydides in
the last analysis. If Thucydides was consistent, he must have ac-
cepted the view set forth by Callicles and Thrasymachus while
avoiding, as a matter of course, its crudities and superficialities. The
test will be his teaching on tyranny. In different ways both the
Spartans and the Athenians were opposed to tyranny. Sparta was
never ruled by a tyrant; Athens threw off the yoke of her tyrants
with the help of the Spartans; the admiration for the Athenian ty-
tannicides Harmodius and Aristogeiton was an important part of
the manner in which the Athenian democracy understood itself.
After having indicated in his Introduction that the view held by the
Athenian multitude about the Athenian tyrannicides includes a
grave factual error, he gives on the proper occasion, in the sixth
book, a detailed account of Athenian tyranny and its end. Thucydi-
des was compelled to explain the fear of tyrants which gripped the
Athenian demos so eager to be itself a tyrant. The celebrated deed
of the Athenian tyrannicides was caused, we learn, not by public-
spirited love of liberty but by erotic jealousy. Aristogeiton, a mature
man, was in love with the youth Harmodius to whom Hipparchus,
the brother of the tyrant Hippias, made unsuccessful advances; hurt
in his erotic feelings and fearing that the powerful Hipparchus
might succeed in his attempts by the use of force, Aristogeiton re-
solved on putting down the tyranny. Yet Hipparchus did not dream
of using force; he committed however the folly of hurting Harmo-
dius out of spite by insulting the latter's sister. By some accident the
two lovers failed to kill the tyrant yet did kill his brother whom
later legend promoted to the rank of tyrant for the greater glory
of the killers. The celebrated deed was an irrational act as regards
its first as well as its immediate cause and, above all, as regards its
effect. For only after the slaying of Hippias’ brother did the tyranny
become harsh and bloody since the tyrant became frightened. Prior
LP ?0 that act, the tyranny was popular; the Athenian tyrants were
men of “virtue and intelligence’;*? while not imposing heavy taxes
@ Le. they had the same qualities as Brasidas (IV 81.2). VI 54.6~-7 shows
that there is no conflict between tyranny and piety; cf. also I 126.8-4 and
Aristatle, Politics 1814b88f.
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they adomed the city, managed the wars and brought the sacrifices
in the temples;' they left the laws of the city as they found them;
they only arranged that there was always one of themselves in the
ruling offices. This state of things which, it would seem, was in no
way shocking and degrading, came to an end by the irrational act of
the tyrannicides which started a chain of actions as the result of
which Hippiis was expelled from Athens. He went to the king of
Persia, whence he came many years later, as an old man, with the
Persian army to Marathon. Thucydides was enabled to destroy the
popular and populist legend partly because he had access to an
oral tradition which was not accessible to every Athenian. Perhaps
one will find that Thucydides’ truthful account of Athenian tyranny
is not a vindication of tyranny as such, for he says that owing to
the fact that the tyrants were concerned only with their own safety
and the advancement of their own houses, they hardly did any
deed worth mentioning and surely did not embark on large-scale
expansion of their cities’ power.** But we do not yet know whether
Thucydides regarded empire as the highest good, for to say that
under certain conditions empire is possible and necessary is not the
same as to be an “imperialist.” After all, under certain conditions
civil wars too and tyrannies become possible or necessary.
The conflict between public and private interest to which Thu-
cydides traces the Sicilian disaster has another side to it of which
he does not speak, for good reasons, in his eulogy of Pericles, but
which becomes apparent from his narrative. We shall not forget
the case of Alcibiades to which above all he points when contrasting
post-Periclean Athenian politics with the situation under Pericles.
We shall first consider two other cases. Demosthenes, the most lov-
able of Thucydides’ characters, having committed a grave blunder
in Aetolia owing to which a considerable number of better Athe-
nians than those praised by Pericles in his Funeral Speech had per-
ished, did not return to Athens because he was afraid of what the
Athenians would do to him on account of his failure. He was suffi-
“117, 18.1-2, 20.2, VI 53.8-59.4, Just as Thucydides knew “privately”
of what truly happened at the time of the so-called tyrannicide, he must also
have known privately the correspondence between the Greek traitors Themis-
tocles and Pausanias and the Persian king which he quotes verbatim (I 128.7,
129.3, 187.4). The tyrant Hippias also ended as a-traitor of the Greeks to the
Persian king. The phenomena “tyranny” and “treason,” rooted in the opposition
of self-interest and public interest, belong together. As for the possibility of
an Athenian tyrant at the time of the Peloponnesian war, cf. especially VIII 66.
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ciently versatile to compensate the city for his defeat by a splendid
victory in the next campaign in the same region, after which victory
it was safe for him to return (III 98.4-5, 114.1). We catch here a
glimpse of the most serious conflict between private and public in-
terest in Athens: public-spirited men must fear for their safety if
they commit serious mistakes or what the demos regards as serious
mistakes. In cases like this it is not love of private gain or prestige
but a man’s more legitimate concern for his safety and honor which
comes into conflict with public service.** During the Sicilian expedi-
tion Demosthenes was sent to Sicily with a strong army in order to
assist Nicias who was not sufficiently strong to reduce Syracuse. He
wished to avoid Nicias’ great mistake which consisted in postponing
his assault on Syracuse too long; he therefore launched an attack as
soon as possible; he suffered a severe defeat. The situation was in
every aspect much graver than after his defeat in Aetolia. Hence he
did not think for one moment of his own safety and proposed imme-
diate return of the whole armament to Athens. Nicias still had hope
of success at Syracuse. But the reason which he gave openly in a
council of war for rejecting Demosthenes’ proposal was that the
Athenians would take a dim view of the withdrawal of the arma-
ment from Syracuse unless they had voted for it in advance; if the
men in command in Sicily take it upon themselves to return to
Athens, the Athenian vote on the commanders in Sicily will be
swayed by clever calumniators; the very servicemen who are now
most in favor of an immediate return to Athens will assert after
their return that the Athenian commanders had committed treason,
having been bribed by the enemy; knowing the natures of the Athe-
nians, he prefers to stay in Sicily and to die at the hands of the
enemies as an individual (“privately”) rather than to perish through
the Athenians [“publicly”] on a degrading charge and unjustly (VII
47-48). Nicias regarded this reasoning as publicly defensible: no
one could deny that his and Demosthenes’ safety and honor were
at the mercy of unscrupulous demagogues and of the easily excit-
able and ignorant demos; he preferred for himself an honorable
death in battle. But by choosing “privately” his death in Sicily, he
chose “publicly” the destruction of the Athenian armament in Sicily
and therewith, as far as in him lay, the ruin of Athens; out of justi-
“ CF. Machiavelli, Discorsi | 28-31.
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fied fear of the Athenian demos he acted like a traitor. If men of the
integrity of Demosthenes and Nicias could, if to different degrees,
' be swayed by fear for their safety to take such questionable courses,
the conduct of Alcibiades appears in a different light than it other-
wise would. When the Athenians recalled him from Sicily to defend
himself against a capital charge, while suspecting him in addition
_of being involved in a plot to establish a tyranny in Athens (VI 53,
60-61), he did not return to Athens, justly fearing that he would
be killed as a matter of course without receiving a fair hearing; he
had practically no choice but to escape to Sparta, to become a
traitor to his fatherland, and, regardless of whether he had ever
desired to become a tyrant, to embark on a policy of amazing versa-
tility—playing the Spartans against the Athenians, the Persian king
against both the Spartans and the Athenians, the Athenian oligarchs
against the Athenian demos, and the Athenian demos against the
Athenian oligarchs—which for some time made him the arbiter of
all powers and which might have made him the monarch of Athens
and not only of Athens.
Let us reconsider at this point the diagnosis of the Sicilian expe-
dition which Thucydides indicates in his very eulogy of Pericles.
The Sicilian expedition could have succeeded but for the fact that
Pericles’ successors were concerned more with their private good
than with the common good: Alcibiades was driven to prefer his
private good to the common good because the Athenian demos
compelled him to become a traitor to Athens and to attempt to
become her tyrant; the Sicilian expedition would have succeeded
if the Athenian demos had trusted Alcibiades (VI 15.4). The earlier
tyrannies (like that of Pisistratus and his sons) were indeed incom-
patible with empire; empire—at any rate the empire studied by
Thucydides, the Athenian empire—is not possible without the full
participation of the demos in political life; the demos is enthusiasti-
cally in favor of the grandest imperial enterprise ever undertaken
by any Greek city but it ruins that enterprise by its folly; it brings
about a situation in which it looks as if only Alcibiades, whom it
distrusts and hates and whom it had driven to actions which in the
case of any other man would be called desperate, could save the
city by in effect becoming a tyrant. The Sicilian expedition would
not have succeeded, it would not even have been attempted in the
circumstances, under Pericles. To attempt such an enterprise and
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to succeed in it, Athens needed a leader of greater stature, of a
better physis than Pericles.** The Melian dialogue is connected with
the Sicilian disaster by the same thought which connects the Funeral
Speech with the plague: by the question regarding the precarious
harmony between the public and the private.
The connection between the Melian dialogue and the Sicilian
disaster is closer than that between the tyrant city and the tyrannical
individual. The Athenians on Melos had but scorn for the Melians’
hope for divine help to the just, for any hope for any divine help.
They spoke indeed behind closed doors but to hear them one
would believe that all Athenians shared their views. In fact however
they spoke only for a part of Athens—for modern, innovating,
daring Athens whose memory barely extends beyond Salamis. and
Themistocles. But precisely when the new Athens was put to its
test through the Peloponnesian war, and therefore the rural popu-
lation of Attica had to be uprooted, all Athenians were reminded
most forcefully of their being rooted in remote antiquity, in an
epoch when the belief in the ancestral gods was in its greatest
vigor. The very Funeral Speech reminds one of the singular glory of
Marathon as distinguished from Salamis.** The older stratum of
Athens asserted itself—if in a “sophisticated” manner*’—during the
Peloponnesian war as narrated by Thucydides through Nicias who
brought about the peace with Sparta called after him and who
opposed the Sicilian expedition. Nicias can be said to be that lead-
ing and patriotic Athenian who came closest to holding the “Spar-
tan” or “Melian” view as previously described. To see this one must
follow his fate as it unfolds in Thucydides’ pages. By doing so we
shall arrive at a somewhat clearer understanding of Thucydides’
manner of writing.
The first action of Nicias was an attack on an island close to
Athens; the action was undertaken in the interest of Athens’ safety
against attacks from the sea; part of the action consisted in “liberat-
ing” the entrance for Athenian ships between the island and the
mainland (III 51; cf. II 94.1). The Spartans had begun the war out
of concern with their safety; they claimed to wage the war for the
“ The praise of Antiphon’s virtue (VIII 68.1) must be understood as part
of the “Alcibiadean” context: Antiphon is not praised, as Brasidas and the
Athenian tyrants are (IV 81.2, VI 54.5), for the fact that he possessed both
“irtue and (political) intelligence.
“TI 73.2-74.4, II 14-16, 84.5, 86.1-3; cf. Plato, Laws 707b4-—c8.
* Plato, Laches 197d.
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“liberation” of the Greek cities from Athenian domination. We next
find Nicias in charge of an unsuccessful attempt to reduce the island
of Melos (III 91.1-3); Athenians of a different stamp succeed where
Nicias failed. On the next occasion on which we hear of him, his
enemy Cleon had made him responsible in the Athenian assembly
for the fact that the Spartans cut off on the island of Sphacteria had
not yet been reduced; in order to beat off the attack, Nicias, taking
up a suggestion made by others, proposes that Cleon should go to
Sphacteria and resigns his military command in favor of Cleon; he
hoped as all other moderate men did that Cleon’s expedition would
be the end of the abominable demagogue (IV 27.5-28.5). Nicias
hoped in vain; his apparently shrewd move merely led to Cleon’s
greatest triumph and therewith to the gravest defeat of the moderate
Athenians; his move against Cleon foreshadows his move against
Alcibiades in the debate about the Sicilian expedition: a move
meant to be conducive to the cause of moderation assured the
defeat of that cause. Nicias’ fourth action is a campaign against
Corinth which ended in a victory of no consequence; two facts are
remarkable: the victory was due to the Athenian knights, and Nicias
religiously took care that two Athenian corpses in the hands of the
enemy were surrendered to the Athenians under a truce (IV 42-44).
There are amazing parallels to both facts in the Athenian defeat in
Sicily. It must suffice here to say that the inferiority of the Athenians
in cavalry may have been the decisive reason for their Sicilian de-
feat—more important than the more startling blunders underlined
by Thucydides. This military mistake was due equally to Nicias
and to Alcibiades (VI 71.2; cf. 20.4, 21.2, 22, 25.2, 31.2 as well as the
later references to cavalry in the account of the Sicilian expedition).
It surely is in perfect harmony with the spirit of Thucydides’ silent
instruction not to mention that military blunder but merely to en-
able the reader to see it. And it is surely in perfect agreement with
the spirit of Thucydides’ quest for causes that he might find the
decisive fault of the Sicilian defeat in an unspectacular blunder of
the kind indicated—a blunder not unconnected indeed, as a mo-
ment’s reflection shows, with the spectacular ones. In the year follow-
ing Nicias was in charge of the conquest of an island inhabited by
Spartan subjects; there was a battle but the resistance of the enemy
was not strong; the vanquished were treated very mildly, not at all
as the Melians were treated after their defeat; the conquest was
easy thanks to Nicias’ secret negotiations with some of the islanders
(IV 53-54). The action foreshadows Nicias’ policy with regard to
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the Syracusans. Nicias’ sixth action was undertaken against Brasidas;
Nicias was at least partly responsible for the fact that the inhabi-
tants of a city which had turned from the Athenian alliance to the
Spartans were not butchered by the angry soldiery after its subjuga-
tion (IV 129-130). The last and most famous action of Nicias prior
to the Sicilian expedition was the peace with Sparta which separates
the two parts of the Peloponnesian war. This action was rendered
possible by the deaths of Brasidas and Cleon. Through Cleon’s
death Nicias had become what he was eager to become, the leading
man in Athens. He was eager for peace because he wished to give
rest both to himself and to the city from the toils of war for the
present and because for the future he did not wish to expose his
hitherto untarnished good fortune to fortune’s whims (V 16.1):
there seems to be perfect harmony between his private interest and
the public interest. But the peace proved very soon to be unstable,
and Nicias was attacked as responsible for a peace which was
allegedly not in the interest of Athens (V 46): leaders, to say noth-
ing of others, are exposed to fortune’s whims not only in war. Only
after having shown us Nicias in such a large number of deeds of so
great a variety does Thucydides let us hear a speech by Nicias. No
other character is introduced by Thucydides in this manner; the
unique introduction corresponds to Nicias’ unique importance.
In his first speech (VI 9-14) Nicias attempts to dissuade the
“ Cf. the report about a speech by Nicias in V 46.1. As for Brasidas, cf. 1
86.6 (or 85.1) with the only preceding mention of him in II 25.2. The deeds
of Alcibiades preceding his first speech are no less in number than Nicias’ but
they are less varied. The unique significance of Nicias consists in the fact that
he is the representative par excellence of moderation in the city of daring. As
the pious gentleman warrior who is concerned with his military renown and
with omens, he represents also the class of readers primarily addressed by
Thucydides whose work deals above all with war and with omens (cf. I 23.2-
8); that work is best understood if one reads it as primarily addressed to the
Niciases of the future generations, potential pillars of their cities who will be
attracted as a matter of course by the account of the greatest war which was
so great because of the large number of battles as well as of omens, Among
those primary addressees there will be some who can learn to raise their sights
beyond Nicias or who can ascend. That ascent will be guided in the first
place by Thucydides’ explicit praise of men other than Nicias: of Themistocles,
Pericles, Brasidas, Pisistratus, Archelaus, Hermocrates, and Antiphon (cf. note
71 below). But it will also eventually be guided by Thucydides’ praise, only
silently conveyed, of Demosthenes and Diodotus,
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Athenians from the Sicilian expedition. He makes that attempt a
few days after they had already decided on the expedition and
elected him against his will as one of the three commanders. There
had been no change in popular sentiment between the two meetings
of the assembly (cf. III 35.4): Nicias’ success depends entirely on
his power of persuasion, He begins his attempt to persuade the
Athenians by suggesting that his self-interest would induce him to
favor the expedition: he would derive honor from it since he would
be a commander and he is less afraid than others to die; he opposes
the expedition, then, because he is concerned exclusively with the
common good. Yet, one might well say, how can he derive honor
from being a commander of the expedition if the expedition cannot
be crowned with success? Why then does he oppose it? In fact, he
opposes it from self-interest—from a self-interest which in his view
is as much in harmony with the common good in the case of the
Sicilian expedition as it was in the case of the Peace of Nicias. He
admits this in a way by adding at once that a good citizen ought
to be concerned with his body and his property since precisely this
concern makes him concerned with the well-being of the city. If
he has any hope of success, he will try to persuade the city to pre-
serve what it possesses and not to risk it for the sake of immanifest
and future things; he will wish, that is, that the Athenians will act
as he himself—the wealthy and famous Nicias who is completely
satisfied with the wealth and the fame which he possesses—is
prompted to act or that they will act in the Spartan manner (cf. I
70.2-3, VI 31.6). The enemy to be feared, he asserts, is Sparta, anti-
democratic Sparta, and not Syracuse; the Spartans may use the
opportunity supplied by the Athenians’ entanglement in Sicily for
no longer remaining at rest: the Athenians ought to remain at rest.
He tries to make his hearers oblivious of the fact that the Spartans
tend to remain at rest and that more than the Athenians’ going to
Sicily would be needed to stir them into action. Without foreseeing
and willing it, he provides in a manner for this additional incentive.
He can only hope that he will dissuade the Athenians from the
expedition; to say the least, he must reckon with the possibility
that, in accordance with the formal decision made in the preceding
meeting of the assembly, he and Alcibiades will be in joint com-
mand of the expedition. Yet in order to dissuade the Athenians from
the expedition, he discredits his fellow commander: Alcibiades is
concerned only with his private good; he cannot be trusted. No one
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can say whether or to what extent this attack on Alcibiades’ char-
acter, which proved to be wholly ineffectual at the moment, con-
tributed under other circumstances to the Athenians’ recalling Alcibi-
ades from Sicily and hence to the stirring of the Spartans into
action against Athens; but no one can deny that Nicias’ calumny
of Alcibiades is in harmony with the manner in which the Athenians
treated Alcibiades a short time later in manifest disregard of the
interest of their city. Thucydides’ judgment on Alcibiades from the
point of view of civic virtue agrees with Nicias’ judgment but,
having reflected more deeply even than Pericles on the complex
relation between private interest and the interest of the city, he is
less sure than Nicias that Alcibiades’ concern with his own aggran-
dizement is simply opposed to the interest of Athens, and he is quite
sure that the success of the Sicilian expedition depended decisively
on Alcibiades’ participation in it on the side of the Athenians (VI
15). At any rate Alcibiades, who calls on the Athenians to act in the
Athenian, not in the Spartan, manner convinces them that by
entrusting the command of the expedition to him and Nicias jointly,
they will make sure that his defects (if they are defects) are com-
pensated not only by his outstanding virtues but by Nicias’ virtue
as well. In his second speech (VI 20-23) Nicias makes a last effort
to dissuade the Athenians from the expedition by making clear to
them the magnitude of the effort required to guarantee the success
of the enterprise; he does not realize that in doing so he merely
gives the Athenians what appears to them to be the most competent
expert advice as to how they can achieve the end which they most
passionately desire or that he proves the wisdom of Alcibiades
according to whom the cooperation of Alcibiades’ nature and Nicias’
experience is needed for the success of the expedition. Nicias is
obviously not fit to be the sole or even the chief commander
of the expedition (cf. VII 38.2-3, 40.2). While the Athenians are
engaged in preparing the expedition, they receive the first inkling
of the impending disaster: a gross act of impiety is committed in
Athens and this appeared to be a bad omen for the expedition in
the eyes of the Athenians, the large majority of whom lacked the
lights which distinguished the Athenian speakers on Melos; the
popular fear of the gods is used against Alcibiades by those who
compete with him for popular favor; but for certain calculations
they would have impeached him for impiety at once; they will bring
about his criminal prosecution within a very short time; while one
has no right to assume that Nicias was involved in these follies,
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one cannot deny that both the distrust of Alcibiades and the popu-
lar fear are in harmony with Nicias’ way of thinking. For the time
being, the preparations for the expedition are continued and com-
pleted; the expeditionary force sails. The Sicilian expedition sur-
passes everything undertaken by Pericles; whereas Pericles stood
for love of the beautiful qualified by thrift, the Sicilian expedition,
being in the style of Alcibiades whose fellow commander was the
exceedingly rich Nicias, was inspired by love of the beautiful on
the level of lavishness;® it reminded of Xerxes’ expedition against
Greece; yet after Alcibiades’ recall, the man at the head of this
proud enterprise will be the man less tainted by hybris than any of
his Greek contemporaries. One must wonder whether Alcibiades’
hybris would not have been more conducive to Athens’ success than
Nicias’ lack of it. Despite Alcibiades’ recall, the Athenians in Sicily
were quite successful at first: Nicias was a competent general. In
addition the third of the three commanders in charge of the expe-
dition, Lamachus, was still alive, and no one can say to what extent
the early successes of the Athenians against Syracuse were due to
this man whom we had almost forgotten to mention and who was
more given to daring than Nicias. But Alcibiades had stirred the
Spartans into action and a Peloponnesian force was on its way for
the relief of hard-pressed Syracuse. In addition, Lamachus had died
fighting and Nicias had fallen sick. Yet Nicias, being now the sole
commander and again underestimating the power of the abominable
traitor Alcibiades, was more hopeful than ever before (VI 103-104).
His hope is disappointed: the Peloponnesian force arrives and the
situation of the Athenians in Sicily deteriorates rapidly. Yet Nicias
is now in his element: no daring action is possible any more; the
only way of salvation is inactivity and caution; but caution will lead
to salvation only if the Athenians at home act quickly either by
calling back the armament from Sicily very soon or by sending
strong reinforcements very soon (VII 8, 11.3); apart from being
cautious Nicias can only hope. Acting with utmost caution toward
his own fellow citizens because he knows their natures (14.2, 4), he
does not dare to tell them that the only safe course of action is the
immediate recall of the armament from Sicily; he can only hope
that they will draw this inference from his report about the situa-
tion in Sicily. This hope too is disappointed. The Athenians send
strong reinforcements under Demosthenes who intends to avoid
* Cf, VI 81 with 12.2 and V 40.1; ef. also VII 28.1, 8, 4.
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Nicias’ mistake which consisted in lack of daring, but who fails in
his daring effort because the enemy forces are already too strong.
The only way of salvation is immediate return to Athens. Nicias
op this course partly from fear of the Athenians, partly from
hope that the Syracusans might still give in because of the enormity
of the expense which they were incurring on account of the war.
When the situation deteriorates still further, Nicias changes his
mind; but just as the Athenians are about to withdraw, an eclipse
of the moon occurs whereupon “the majority of the Athenians,”
with whom the excessively pious Nicias entirely agrees, at the
advice of the soothsayers refuse to move until “three times nine”
days have passed (50.3-4). As a consequence, the situation of the
Athenians deteriorates still further. The wholly unexpected happens.
Their navy is defeated by the Syracusan navy; the spirit of initia-
tive, daring, and inventiveness by which the Athenians hitherto
excelled has left them and now animates their enemies; the Athe-
nians have become Spartans and the Athenians’ enemies have be-
come Athenians; the Syracusans see before them the prospect of a
naval victory of the grandeur of Salamis; the Athenians are utterly
discouraged. They attempt to escape by sea from the region of
Syracuse where they had become besieged instead of the besiegers;
the Syracusans are resolved to prevent their escape. Nicias attempts
to encourage his utterly discouraged troops by a speech which, if
read in the light of the deeds, conveys a single thought: the salva-
tion of every one of you and of the city as a whole depends on your
acting on the view the truth of which is known to you from
experience, namely, that chance may for once be on our side. The
ensuing naval battle in the harbor of Syracuse is watched with
the utmost concern by the part of the land forces which had not
embarked, especially by the Athenians whose feelings change from
one extreme to the other as the naval battle, as far as they can
observe it, changes from success of their compatriots to their failure.
When the spectators see their side prevailing, they again become
confident and turn to calling on the gods that they should not
deprive them of salvation; only while they have hope based on the
apparent strength of their human friends do they pray (71.3, 72.1;
cf. II 53.4), Eventually the Syracusans prevail. The Athenian defeat
was however not as disastrous as. was thought by the bulk of the
Athenians, who were now still more dejected than ever before. It
was still possible for them to save themselves by retreating on land
during the night, especially since the Syracusans were preoccupied
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with a holy day—a day of sacrifice to Heracles—but a ruse of the
statesmanly Hermocrates, which compensated for his fellow citizens’
ill-timed piety, deceived the trusting Nicias into delaying the retreat
until daybreak, i.e. until it was too late. Only two days after the
naval battle do the Athenians begin their retreat, leaving their sick
and wounded behind in a state of utmost misery; no one listens
to the prayers of the latter although all their departing comrades
are in tears despite the fact that they have suffered things, and are
in fear of suffering things, terrible beyond tears (75.4). They had
left Athens with high hopes and solemn prayers to the gods; now
they express their despair in cursing the gods (75.7; cf. VI 32.1-2).
Nicias however has not changed: he still has hope, he encourages
the army to go on hoping and not to blame themselves overmuch.
He presents himself as a model to them: he who was thought to be
a favorite of chance is now in the same danger as the meanest of
them and in addition very sick although he has spent his life in
acting in many ways toward the gods according to custom and law
and toward men justly and without arousing the envy of men or
gods. He is hopeful for the future because he has led a virtuous
life although he cannot deny that the present misery, which does
not at all correspond to his merit, frightens him. Could it be true
that there is no correspondence between piety and good fortune?
Or is this misfortune only a part of the Athenians’ misfortune, and
are the Athenians not as guiltless as he himself? Surely not every
Athenian present can look back at his life with the same satisfaction
as Nicias; in particular most of those present had passionately
desired the Sicilian expedition which Nicias had opposed; perhaps
that expedition which reminded us of Xerxes’ expedition against
Greece, having been undertaken from hybris due to prosperity, has
aroused the envy of some god; but surely by now we have been
sufficiently punished. If the expedition was an unjust act, it was a
human failing, and human failings are not punished excessively.
We are now worthier of the gods’ pity than of their envy. Nicias
does not fail to add the remark that they are still strong enough to
resist the enemy provided they keep order and discipline (77). Yet
neither his piety and justice nor his generalship (cf. 81.3) can save
the Athenians nor himself. When everything is lost he surrenders
to the Spartan commander Gylippus, who is anxious to save him,
one reason being that the Spartans were obliged to Nicias for his
kindness toward the Spartans after Sphacteria and for the peace
called after him; but Gylippus has to give in to Corinthian and
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THE CITY AND MAN
Syracusan pressures just as his countrymen had to give in to the
Thebans’ demand for the butchery of the Plataeans. “Nicias de-
served least of the Greeks of my time to arrive at such a degree of
misfortune because of his full devotion to the pursuit of virtue
as understood by old established custom” (86.5). Thucydides’
judgment on Nicias is precise, as precise as his judgment on the
Spartans according to which the Spartans above all others suc-
ceeded in being moderate while prospering: both judgments. are
made from the point of view of those on whom he passes judgment.
They are precise by being incomplete. His judgment on the Spar-
tans does not reveal the cause of Spartan moderation and hence its
true character. His judgment on Nicias does not reveal the true
character of the connection between the fate of men and their
morality. Nicias like the Spartans believed that the fate of men or
cities corresponds to their justice and piety’? (cf. VII 18.2), to the
© Cf, VII 18.2. Cf. the Athenian parallel in V 32.1 (i.e. near the center of
Thucydides’ account of the central year of the war as narrated by him); the
Athenian reflection on the connection between injustice and adversity belongs
to the time of Nicias’ ascendancy. The difference between the Athenian am-
bassadors on Melos and the Athenian people is illustrated also by the negotia-
tions between the Athenians and the Boeotians after the Athenian defeat at
Delium. The Athenians had occupied and fortified a temple of Apollo, The
Boeotian commander in his address to the troops before the battle points out
the sacrilegious character of the Athenians’ action and draws the conclusion
' that the gods will help the Boeotians (IV 92.7). The Athenians lose the battle.
The Boeotians refuse to permit the Athenians to gather their dead on the ground
that the Athenians had desecrated the temple at Delium; the Athenians attempt
to show that the ground is specious (97-99). Thucydides’ account of this con-
troversy is considerably more extensive than his account of the battle. In his
commentary on the passage Gomme remarks that “Thucydides is curiously
interested in this sophistical stuff’ and that “his insistence on this argument of
words was due to his feeling that the Boeotian refusal to allow the Athenians
to collect their dead was another evil result of the war—an abandonment of
one of the recognized, and humane, usages of Greece.” The “humane” usage
was based on a specific piety, i.e. a specific understanding of the divine, and
its status was therefore not fundamentally different from that of the prohibition
against the pollution of temples; from the point of view of the Athenian am-.
bassadors to Melos—or of Socrates—the fate of the corpses would be a matter
of utter indifference. Thucydides’ “curious interest” in the casuistry regarding
sacral matters is a necessary consequence of his interest in the fundamental
issue of Right and Compulsion to which the Athenians explicitly refer in their
reply to the Boeotians (98.5-6). We see here again that Thucydides is more
open-minded or takes less for granted than “the scientific historian.”
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practice of virtue as understood by old established custom. But this
correspondence rests entirely on hope, on unfounded or vain hope.”
The view set forth by the Athenians on Melos is true. Nicias, and
the Athenians in Sicily with him, perished in the last analysis for
the same reason that the Melians perished. This then is the con-
nection between the Melian dialogue and the Sicilian disaster, the
unique dialogue and the uniquely narrated deed: not indeed the
gods, but the human concern with the gods without which there
cannot be a free city, took terrible revenge on the Athenians. Just
as the Athenians on Melos mistakenly assumed that the leading
Melians, as distinguished from the Melian populace, would as a
matter of course agree with their view of the divine (V 103.2-104)
and hence of right, so they mistakenly assumed that the Athenian
demos would never need a leader like the Melian leaders. Pericles,
who would never have said what the Athenians on Melos say, would
for the same reason never have undertaken the Sicilian expedition
in the circumstances in which it was undertaken. Alcibiades, who
might have said what the Athenians on Melos say, might have
brought the Sicilian expedition to a happy issue. But Alcibiades’
proved or presumed impiety made it necessary for the Athenian
demos to entrust the expedition to a man of Melian beliefs whom
they could perfectly trust because he surpassed every one of them
in piety.
8. The Spartan Manner and the Athenian Manner
This much is clear: the theme “Sparta-Athens” is not only not
exhausted but is barely touched by the question as to which of
the two cities broke the treaty or compelled its antagonist to break
the treaty, for unless it is kept back by weakness of one kind or
another, every city is itself compelled to expand. This reason how-
ever justifies Athenian imperialism in the same way in which it
justifies the imperialism of Persia or of Sparta. By implication it justi-
fies the dominion of the rich over the poor or vice versa as well as
tyranny. In other words this reason does not do justice to the truth
intended by the “Spartan” praise of moderation and the divine law.
" Therefore Nicias’ virtue is not unqualified; it is law-bred, in contra-
’ distinction to the virtue of Brasidas (IV 81.2), the Athenian tyrants (VI 54.5),
and Antiphon (VIII 68.1).
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THE CITY AND MAN
Besides, the meaning of “compulsion” is not quite clear: the Melians
were not compelled to submit to the Athenians. But one might say
that if the alternative to submission is extinction, submission is
compulsory or necessary for sensible men. The Athenians at the
time of Salamis were not compelled to submit to the Persians
because they had a considerable navy, the most intelligent leader
Themistocles and the most daring zeal (I 74.1-2); does this mean
that given these conditions they were compelled to fight? Surely
once they had fought and won and then wished to prevent the
recurrence of the extreme danger from which they had saved them-
selves, they were compelled to embark on their imperial policy.
The very least one would have to say is that there are different
kinds of compulsion.
The statements of the Athenians on Melos are so shocking be-
cause they justify their empire and hence their action against Melos
ultimately by nothing except the natural necessity by virtue of
which the strong—anyone who is strong—rules the weak and thus
treat every consideration of right—such as the higher right of Athe-
nian imperialism as contrasted with the imperialism of any barbaric
power—with utmost disdain. Only toward the end of the dialogue
do they mention in passing as a matter too obvious for emphasis
that their demand on the Melians keeps within reasonable limits.
Yet even these Athenians cannot help indicating that Athenians are
men of a different character than Spartans. The Spartans, they say,
in their dealings with foreigners, more patently than all other men
they know regard the pleasant as noble and the expedient as just;
since expediency, to say nothing of pleasure, calls for safety and
only the just and the noble induce one to seek dangers, the Spartans
generally speaking are least inclined to take dangerous courses (V
105.4, 107). The Athenians in other words do not patently or simply
identify in their dealings with-non-Athenians the pleasant with the
noble and the expedient with the just; they are somehow concerned
with the noble or beautiful in every respect; in the words of Peri-
cles, they love the beautiful; the daring for which they are famous
is not bestial or savage or mad but is inspired by generous senti-
ments. This suggestion is more shocking than everything else which
the Athenians on Melos say or suggest because it is so flagrantly
contradicted by the ensuing butchery of the Melians, although it
must be admitted that that disgraceful action does not necessarily
follow from the principles stated by the ambassadors and that,
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
as far as we know, the ambassadors were not responsible for that
action, What the Athenians on Melos say about the peculiarity of
the Spartans and hence indirectly about the Athenians compels
us to say that the atrocity committed afterward is so shocking
precisely because it was committed by Athenians and not by Spar-
tans; one must demand more from Athenians than from Spartans
because the Athenians are men superior to the Spartans. Even the
Athenians on Melos are witnesses to this superiority for more than
one reason. The Athenians in Sparta are less ambiguous witnesses
to the same fact. The latter are indeed compelled to justify the
Athenian empire. They must show “what kind of city” Athens is
and that she is worthy of imperial rule: she was compelled to
acquire the empire and she is compelled to preserve it, but what
compelled and compels her to do so is not merely fear and profit
but also something noble, honor; accordingly she exercises her im-
perial rule in a juster, more restrained, less greedy manner than her
power would permit her to do and the same power will lead others
in her place in fact to do. What the Athenians in Sparta stated in
order to prevent the outbreak of the war is completed on the grand-
est scale in Athens by Pericles in his Funeral Speech for the purpose
of showing that Athens more than any other city is worth dying for.
Athens differs from all other cities—the cities which resemble her
merely imitate her—in such a way that she above all others deserves
to rule an empire. The qualities which distinguish her are those
which Sparta above all others lacks: generosity without pettiness
or calculation, freedom, generous gaiety and ease, courage in war
which stems not from compulsion, dictation, and harsh discipline
but from generosity, in brief, a well-tempered love of the noble and
the beautiful. In other words, the ultimate justification of the
Athenian empire is less compulsion, fear, or profit than everlasting
glory—a goal to the pursuit of which the Athenians are not com-
pelled, or with which they are not obsessed, but to which they have
freely and fully dedicated themselves.’
But let us turn from the speeches to the more trustworthy deeds
or facts. The first outstanding fact—first certainly in time—which
Thucydides presents and which is most obviously relevant to the
issue now under consideration is the contrast between the Spartan
™ By the last sentence I have tried to bring out Pericles’ implicit reply to
what the Corinthians say in I 70.8-9.
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THE CITY AND MAN
king Pausanias and the Athenian Themistocles. They were the most
famous men among the Greeks of their time, in the forefront of the
fight against Persia, and both ended ignominiously after having
betrayed Greece to Persia. Thucydides does not pass judgment on
their acts of treason. Themistocles became the founder of the Athe-
nian empire through his superior intelligence, versatility, and guile;
Pausanias involuntarily and against Sparta’s interest drove the other
Greeks who needed protection from Persia into the arms of Athens
by his stupid violence and tyrant-like injustice. Pausanias wrote to
the Persian king because he was trying to become the ruler of
Greece with the help of the Persian king; Themistocles had been
ostracized by the Athenians and wrote to the Persian king only
when he was compelled to do so by persecution on the part of
Sparta and Athens. When Pausanias’ un-Spartan conduct came to
the notice of the authorities in Sparta, they called him home and he
retuned: he was nothing without Sparta, without his hereditary
position in Sparta; the Spartans had very strong grounds—grounds
which had the force of proofs—for suspecting him of high treason.
But in accordance with the supreme fairness which they customarily
practice among themselves, they did not start criminal proceedings
against him until they had proof beyond a shadow even of un-
reasonable doubt. No such consideration was given to the leading
Athenians in Athens. Thanks to her regime, Sparta was less threat-
ened by outstanding individuals or potential tyrants than Athens
was or believed to be. Themistocles may have been dangerous to
Athens; Pausanias was never a danger to Sparta. Nor was Themis-
tocles compelled to return to Athens; he was something without
Athens; for he owed most of his power to his nature as distinguished
not only from nomos but from any other kind of imparted knowl-
edge; his superior nature (his “genius”) would assert itself every-
where, in Persia as well as in Greece; Pausanias, on the other hand,
while in no way outstanding by his nature—Thucydides has nothing
to say about his nature—owed all his power to law, and any virtue
he possessed to the strict discipline of Sparta which was wholly
ineffective when he was away from Sparta. Sparta may have been
a better city than Athens; Athens surpassed her by far by natural
gifts, by her individuals."
Thucydides presents to us a galaxy of outstanding Athenians—
"I 908-91, 98.8-4, 95-96.1, 128-138. Cf. Plato, Laws 642c6-d1.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAB
outstanding by intelligence or sheer cleverness and efficiency, by
agility of character or hybri-—end only a single outstanding Spe
tan, Brasidas. Sparta was less threatened by outstanding men than
Athens because she had so few of them; the Spartans were members
of a herd rather than individuals; Sparta did not, like Athens, briug
forth lions.‘ How petty and how poor does the Spartan traitor
Pausanias look in contrast with the Athenian traitors Themistorles
and Alcibiades. It goes without saying that there is no Spartan
whom one could for one moment dream of comparing to Pericles,
who appears to be unrivalled even among the Athenians of his time
as Thucydides indicates in the following manner: Pericles’ speeches
are the only speeches delivered in Athens by an Athenian which do
not form part of pairs of speeches (cf. I 139.4). As for Brasidas,
the exception to the rule, he confirms the rule; he is the Athenian
among the Spartans; he is the only Thucydidean character who
ever makes a dedication to Athena and apparently sacrifices to her
(IV 116.2, V 10.2; cf. II 13.5). He surpasses the other Spartans
not only by his intelligence, initiative, ability to speak, and justice
but also by his mildness (IV 81, 108.2-3, 114.3-5). He is the only
Thucydidean character praised by the author for his mildness. This
praise must be rightly understood. Men like Nicias and Demos-
thenes were no less mild than Brasidas. Brasidas’ mildness deserved
praise not only in contrast with the violence of his Athenian antag-
onist, Cleon, but above all because mildness was so rare among
Spartans as distinguished from Athenians. Cleon is the counterpart
of Brasidas because just as Brasidas is the Athenian among the
Spartans, Cleon is in a sense the Spartan among the Athenians. As
we observed earlier, in another sense Nicias is the Spartan among
the Athenians. Thucydides respects Nicias or at any rate is friendly
towards him whereas he loathes Cleon. Cleon betrays the soul of
Athens. His version of imperialism is not ennobled by any thought
of everlasting glory. In his view imperialism is irreconcilable with
any thought of generous compassion or any pleasure deriving from
speeches. His imperialism is guided solely by considerations of the
profitable or expedient. He does appeal to justice but only to puni-
tive justice to be inflicted by Athens on her faithless allies—a kind
of justice which in his view coincides with Athens’ interest. He has
only contempt for the love of glory and generosity and the love of
“ Plato, Laws 666e1-7; Aristophanes, Frogs 1481-1432.
213.
THE CITY AND MAN
speeches for which Pericles had praised Athens by speaking of her
“love of beauty and love of wisdom” as distinguishing her specially
from Sparta. Owing to his great credit with the demos Cleon can
openly call democracy in question in an assembly of the Athenian
demos, something that Alcibiades can do only in a Spartan assem-
bly. Like a Spartan he condemns the generous desire of the Athe-
nians to spare the lives of the Mytileneans by appealing to the
moderation which shows itself in unquestioning submission to the
wisdom of the law, i.e. to unchangeable laws of questionable good-
ness. The gist of his only speech may be said to be that the proposal
to spare the Mytileneans is so manifestly absurd that the proposers
cannot have had any other motive except to exhibit their cleverness
by defending a manifest absurdity and that those who might. vote
for the proposal cannot have had any other motive except to ex-
press their admiration for that cleverness.”* He is severely punished
for his contempt of speeches. Before the battle of Amphipolis,
Cleon, who had condemned the Athenians for being enamored
of being “lookers-at” of speeches and of sophists, turned to “look
at” the place and its environs, whereas Brasidas made a speech
to his troops and won the battle (V 7.3-4, 10.2-5; III 38.4, 7).
Yet however irrational Cleon may have been on this and other
occasions he is reasonableness itself compared with the Spartan
Alcidas whom the Spartans trusted more than they did Brasidas.
Following the Spartan practice, he killed the Athenian allies whom
he had taken prisoner; he stopped the slaughter immediately
when some friends of Sparta drew his attention to the fact that
he did not promote the liberation of the Greeks from Athenian
domination by killing men who had never lifted their hands against
the liberating Peloponnesians and were Athenian allies only under
duress; if he did not stop his practice he would convert many
who were at present friends of Sparta into her enemies (III 32;
cf. II 67.4). Alcidas was not cruel; he did not kill because he
enjoyed killing; he killed because Spartans always killed in such
circumstances, as a matter of custom and of course. We see him
gaping when the friends of Sparta suggest to him their simple
thought; he is intelligent enough to grasp its truth. What is meant
to amaze us is the fact that this simple thought had never occurred
to him or to any other Spartan with the exception of Brasidas, who
“TIT 87-88; 40.2, 4. Cf. 171.8 and 84.8.
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Ae eager
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WABE
was at that time still entirely powerless.’* Alcidas is as much below
Cleon as Cleon is below Demosthenes and Nicias. Thr:cydides does
not pass judgment on Alcidas’ callousness, whereas he does pass
judgment on Cleon’s violence: he knows what he can expect from
Spartans on the one hand and from Athenians on the other.
These observations receive powerful support from the contrast
between the Spartans’ dealings with the conquered Plataeans and
the Athenians’ dealings with the conquered Mytileneans (III 52-
68). Both actions are judicial. The crime of which the Spartans
judge is Plataeae’s loyalty to Athens, i.e. a line of conduct which is
criminal only on the basis of the assumption, questioned soon after
by the Spartans themselves, that the cause of Sparta is identical
witb the cause of justice; the crime of which the Athenians judge
is Mytilene’s admitted breach of her treaty with Athens. The Pla-
taeans are condemned and executed without a single voice except
their own being raised in their favor before the Spartan tribunal;
the Mytileneans are first condemned but then when the Athenians
regret their cruel decision, the case for the Mytileneans is as power-
fully stated by an Athenian as was the case against them, with the
result that they have a hairbreadth escape. The issue debated before
the Spartan tribunal is exclusively whether the Plataeans were just
or unjust, guilty or innocent; both the Plataeans and their accusers,
the Thebans, defend themselves against the charge of injustice and
accuse the other party of injustice (III 60, 61.1, 63 beginning); the
issue debated in the Athenian assembly is not exclusively or even
chiefly whether the Mytileneans were guilty or innocent but
whether it is expedient for Athens to kill all of them indiscrimi-
nately: the Athenians in contradistinction to the Spartans assume
that killing must serve a purpose other than the satisfaction of the
desire for revenge. There is a certain resemblance between the
position taken by the Thebans who demand the killing of the Pla-
taeans and Cleon who demands the killing of the Mytileneans—both
the Thebans and Cleon do not like “fine speeches” (III 67.6-7 and
“THT 79.3 (cf. 69.1 and 76; cf. III 98 end with 92.5 end [Alcidas is in the
center]). Cf. also I 86.6 (the Spartan commanders call the soldiers together
and then, seeing the mood of the soldiers, decide to address them) and 88.3
(Phormio sees the mood of the soldiers and then calls them together in order
to address them). Cf. the reference to “seeing” in Phormio’s speech (89.1, 8)
and the silence about it in the Spartans’ speech. The theme “seeing” is not
dropped in the narrative of the battle which follows on these speeches.
216
THE CITY AND MAN
37-38); nevertheless Cleon’s Athenian opponent, Diodotus, has
something important jn common with Cleon which distinguishes
both Athenians from the Spartans and their allies: both demand
that not only the fact of the crime but also the wisdom of punishing
it capitally be considered. It goes without saying that the Spartans
do not execute the Plataeans out of blind obedience to a divine
law or the demands of justice but from concern with their imme-
diate self-interest; they give in to the Thebans’ hatred of the Pla-
taeans because they regard the Thebans as useful to them for the
war (III 68.4) or, as the Plataeans put it and as the Athenian
ambassadors on Melos will repeat, the Spartans define justice as
their present convenience (III 56.3, V 105.4). However shocking
the Athenians’ later action against the Melians may be, the Athe-
nians surely did not act hypocritically as the Spartans did toward
the Plataeans. The Spartans, one is tempted to say, are petty calcu-
lators even when they act justly whereas the Athenians are of
generous frankness in their very crimes since they do not even
attempt to disguise their crimes as acts of justice. The Athenians,
who ally themselves with the Messenians, do not claim, as they
might have done, to wage the war in order to liberate the Messe-
nians from Spartan tyranny; the Athenians’ enemies, who claim to
wage a war of liberation against the tyrant city of Athens in the
same spirit in which they do not tolerate tyrants within cities,
restore as a matter of course a tyrant whom the Athenians had
deposed (II 30.1, 33.1-2; cf. I 122.3). Thucydides expresses his
judgment on Sparta’s claim to wage a war of liberation against
Athens in the following manner. He states the case for that claim,
i.e. for the Spartans’ claim that they are waging a just war, most
forcefully immediately after his account of the Thebans’ peacetime
attack on Plataeae and immediately before his account of the first
Spartan invasion of Attica, i.e. between his accounts of the “Pelo-
ponnesians’” decisive breaches of the treaty (II 8.4-5)."’ The only
Spartan who through his whole conduct gives some weight to the
™ He follows a similar procedure in his first two statements about. Pericles’
unique position in Athens (1 127.3 and 189.4); in the first statement he does
not praise Pericles whereas he does in the second; between the two statements
he gives his account of Cylon and of Pausanias-Themistocles; the account in
the center indicates the reason for Pericles’ outstanding qualities; the center
illuminates what precedes it and what follows it. In the example discussed in
the text the center is illuminated by what precedes it and what follows it.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Spartan claim is Brasidas. Compared with the Spartan claim which
was an attempt to lift the Peloponnesian vvar to the heights of the
Persian war, the Athenian (Periclean). conception of the war is
sobriety itself: the war serves no other purpose than to preserve
the empire; the conception appeals to the intelligence rather than
to desire, fear, or other passions. Thucydides’ description of the
Peloponnesian war as the greatest war hecause of the greatness of
the sufferings which it brought agrees more with the Periclean than
with the Spartan conception: the splendor of this war is to be found
in the speeches rather than in the deeds. It would be a gross
exaggeration to say that the Spartans’ concern with justice or piety
was merely hypocritical; they feared the gods genuinely; that fear
induced them sometimes to spare the lives of their helpless enemies
or to be mild as in the case of the Helots of Ithome (I 103.2-3)
who appeared to be protected by an oracle. The Plataeans, as dis-
tinguished from those Helots, were not protected by an oracle but
at most only by ancient oaths. The Athenians did not need oaths or
oracles in order to save the Mytileneans; their mildness or gener-
osity came from their mamner or their souls.
One may try to strengthen the case for Sparta by pointing to
such Athenian atrocities as their complicity in the treacherous
slaughter of the upper-class Corcyreans (IV 46-48) who were
surely inimical to Athens—an atrocity of which one may neverthe-
less say that it does not rival the Spartans’ treacherous slaughter of
the finest men among the Helots who had distinguished themselves
in fighting Sparta’s war (IV 80.2-5). Yet there is surely a kind of
Athenian atrocity which has no parallel in Sparta: the Athenians’
savage rage against each other after the mutilation of the Hermae
and the profanation of the mysteries (VI 53.1-2, 60). In this case
at any rate the fear of the gods which restrained the Spartans from
savagery drove the Athenians into savagery. Especially if one con-
siders this action in the context of the Athenians’ treatment of their
leading citizens in general, one becomes again inclined to say that
Sparta was a better city than Athens. From this point it is only one
step to saying that, in spite or because of their radical antagonism
of manners, Sparta and Athens were worthy antagonists not only
because they were the most powerful Greek cities but because each
was in its own way of outstanding nobility. One may find a con-
firmation for this view in the following story. Contrary to the Greek
notion of Spartan manliness according to which a Spartan would
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THE CITY AND MAN
rather die than give up his arms, the Spartan survivors of the fight-
ing on Sphacteria surrendered to the Athenians and their allies;
the captors could not believe that their captives were of the same
kind as the ‘Spartans who had fallen; one of the Athenian allies
therefore asked one of the captives out of spite if the slain were
perfect gentlemen; the Spartan replied that a spindle (meaning an
arrow), i.e. a woman's tool, would be worth much if it could dis-
tinguish between true men and others, thus indicating that it was a
matter of chance who had been hit by a missile and who had not
(IV 40). It is gratifying to see that the mean question which called
forth the laconic reply was not raised by an Athenian.
This is the place for two general remarks. As has often been
said, Thucydides is concerned with “causes”—with those of the
Peloponnesian war as well as those of all particular incidents of that
war. The statement is correct provided one means that the most
important causes are for him such things as the character of Sparta
on the one hand and of Athens on the other, and that this kind of
cause is understood by him less as the product of conditions (cli-
matic, economic, etc.) than as the specification of the most compre-
hensive “causes,” i.e. motion and rest. Causes in Thucydides’ sense
are not merely “material” and “efficient.” For Thucydides the course
of the war is the self-revelation of Sparta and Athens rather than
the outcome of a strategy. Secondly, for the understanding of the
superiority of the Athenian manner to the Spartan manner one can-
not rely on the Funeral Speech, which expresses Thucydides’ view
only through the deflecting medium of Pericles’ turn of mind. In
Pericles’ view Athens does not need a Homer or whoever by his
poems gives delight for the moment, not because like Thucydides
he disdains boasting or chanting Athens’ praises but because he
himself regards himself as superior to Homer and the other poets
in magnifying and adorning. Thucydides too exaggerates, especially
when he says that the Peloponnesian war affected “so to speak the
greatest part of mankind,” but how far does he remain behind
Pericles who says that “all (kinds of) things from every land” are
imported into Athens and that the Athenians have opened for them-
selves “every sea and land” and have left “everywhere” everlasting
memorials of bad things and good.’* Pericles’ speech is a public,
political, popular utterance whereas Thucydides’ speech is “politic”
"71.2, 21.1, 22.4, IT 38.2, 41.4, 42.1-2 62.1.
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
in Hobbes’s sense. The Funeral Speech is the greatest document of
the harmony between Pericles aid the city of Athens and especially
its demos, which trusts him as much as it is capable; his superior
intelligence is manifest to the demos because it is intelligible to the
demos; he is, so to speak, an open book for the demos; when they
disagree with him they see very soon that the disagreement was
due entirely to their weakness or confusion;’ his superiority is
obvious, unambiguous, not like the ambiguous superiority of The-
mistocles and Alcibiades. Pericles justly occupies the center of the
triptych the outer figures of which (Themistocles and Alcibiades)
are superior to him only by nature but not by law. The extremes
end in disaster; Pericles’ end is inconspicuous—as “normal” as his
life. As for his Funeral Speech, one must not in reading it forget
for one moment the fundamental harmony between Pericles and the
Athenian demos or between Pericles’ private good and the common
good of Athens as he and most Athenians understood it. When
reading, for instance, the unforgettable sentences about the Athe-
nians’ love of beauty or nobility and their love of wisdom, or about
the whole city of Athens being the school of Greece, one ought not
to think of Sophocles and Anaxagoras but of what the average
Athenian was likely to think when he heard these sentences or,
which is the same, of the things to which Pericles explicitly refers
in the very context. It is no small part of Thucydides’ art that the
reader is almost irresistibly tempted not to take this precaution.
The treatment of the Plataeans and of the Mytileneans shows us
the contrast between Sparta and Athens as judges; Pylos and Sicily
show us the contrast between Sparta and Athens in adversity. The
opening part of the account of the Athenian action at Pylos (IV
3-6) is surrounded by accounts of Athenian failures in Sicily and
in Chalcidice: Pylos was the right place for reaching a favorable
decision of the war. Pylos had been chosen by the daring and versa-
tile Demosthenes who could learn from his mistakes and who at the
time when he brought about the seizure of Pylos had no official
position. Thanks to this thoroughly un-Spartan man, the Athenians
succeeded in beating the Spartans at their own game; they defended
In his eulogy of Pericles Thucydides says (II 65.9) that when Pericles
saw the Athenians “out of season insolently bold, he would with his orations
put them into a fear”; Thucydides characteristically gives no example of a
Periclean speech of this description. Cf. pages 152-53 above.
219
THE CITY AND MAN
the Spartan territory which they had occupied by fighting as land
soldiers against a Spartan naval attack (12.3; cf. 14.3) with the
result that more than 300 Spartans were cut off on the island of
Sphacteria. The apprehended disaster—the apprehension of the
capture or killing of the cut-off Spartan force—sufficed to induce
the Spartans to sue for peace without having had the benefit of
Apollo's advice, i.e. to do something which the Athenians had been
induced to do against the advice of Pericles by an actual disaster
‘of an entirely different order of magnitude, namely, the plague. The
true parallel to the Spartan action after their defeat at Pylos is how-
ever the Athenian action after their defeat in Sicily. The Sicilian
disaster, of which everyone thought that it had brought down
Athens, only called forth a still greater Athenian war effort. Under
the influence of Cleon the Athenians decline the Spartan request for
peace. Thucydides does not pass judgment on the Athenian response
nor on the Spartan request, for no judgment is implied in his re-
cording the fact that the strongest opponent of peace with Sparta
was Cleon. Cleon was indeed, as Thucydides says in a different
context, the most violent Athenian citizen and Thucydides strongly
disapproved of his posture toward the Mytileneans (III 36.4, 6;
49.4); but this does not prove that in his opinion Cleon was always
wrong and in particular that he was wrong in not acceding to the
Spartan request for peace after Pylos. After all, Cleon’s leading
opponent on this occasion was Nicias, a man distinguished by
decency rather than by wisdom or daring. Nor does Thucydides call
into question Cleon’s judgment regarding the Spartan peace offer
by showing him somewhat later in a most laughable posture, for
apart from the fact that Cleon, and not his laughing opponents, had
the last laugh, the question in the latter scene concerns, not Cleon’s
political judgment but his strategic judgment which, to the extent
to which it was guided by Demosthenes’ judgment, proved to be
excellent. To this one must add that it is, to say the least, doubtful
whether Demosthenes’ sound advice would have been of any avail
_ but for Cleon’s laughable, even mad (IV 39.3), but firm action in
the Athenian assembly.®° Thucydides might seem to pass unfavor-
able judgment on the Athenian response to the Spartan peace offer
by saying that the response was due to the Athenians’ “desire for
“IV 28-30. For the action on Sphacteria Demosthenes’ experience in
Aetolia was important; cf. not only IV 30.1 but also III 97.2-98.5, IV 28.4
and 32-34.
220
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
more,” to a desire mentioned disapprovingly by the Spartan am-
bassadors to Athens in their speech (21.2, 17.4) and disapproved
for the duration of the Peloponnesian war by Pericles himself (1
144.1, II 65.7). Yet, as we have seen, Thucydides distinguished be-
tween wisdom and its opposite not simply in accordance with
Spartan notions of moderation or the Periclean notion of what could
safely be done during the Peloponnesian war. It is undoubtedly
significant that Thucydides uses in this context an expression used
in the same context first by the Spartans: he is doing his best to
look at the Pylos affair from the Spartan point of view. This is the
reason why he apparently minimizes the Spartan breaches of the
local armistice at Pylos (23.1) and above all why he seems to treat
Demosthenes’ brilliant success as a gift of chance. The Spartans
treat that success in this manner however not merely in order to
detract from their enemy's glory but above all because they believe
in the connection between chance or luck and the gods and in
particular between bad luck and divine punishment: it is precisely
in their speech at Athens that they express for the first time some
doubt as to who began the war, i.e. broke the sworn treaty (IV
20.2), and it is precisely their adversity at Pylos more than anything
else which made them believe that their bad luck was a deserved
punishment for their breach of the treaty (VII 18.2). Thucydides
makes clear in his account of the fighting at Pylos that he does not
share the view of chance presupposed by the Spartan view; he there
characterizes as a reversal of chance what he explains to have been
no more than an action by the Spartans and Athenians that was in
contradiction to the opinion about the two cities which prevailed
at the time (IV 12.2). Or, as his Pericles puts it, “we are ac-
customed to hold chance responsible whenever something happens
against calculation.” To return to the present subject, however
laughable Cleon’s conduct in the Athenian assembly might have
been, his conduct on Sphacteria was not. More seriously laughable
than anything Cleon did was the unconditional surrender of the
survivors of the 300 Spartans on Sphacteria if it is compared with
the noble conduct of the Spartans at Thermopylae and with the
Spartans’ claim regarding themselves as that claim was generally
understood (IV 36.3, 40.1). Thucydides alludes to this disproportion
in the following manner: whereas he and everyone else always
"Y 140.1. Cf. If 91.8-4 with the reference to chance in the Peloponnesians’
speech (87.2) and the silence about it in Phormio’s speech. Cf. Wasps 62.
221
THE CITY AND MAN
called the Spartans on Sphacteria “men” (hoi andres), he calls them
“human beings” (anthropoi) when he shows their helplessness as
they are at the mercy of light-armed soldiers who are never more
than mere “human beings.”** This allusion differs from the mean
taunt directed by an Athenian ally against the Spartans captured
at Sphacteria by the fact that it is in no way directed against the
Spartans who fought so well on Sphacteria but against the city of
Sparta. Perhaps the harshest indictment of the Spartans is supplied
by the fact that but for the defeat at Pylos (and the Athenian con-
quest of Cythera—IV 55), they would never have deviated from
their customary practice to the extent of permitting a man of Brasi-
das’ qualities to make his campaign in the north and hence would
never have waged the war in the spirit of a war of liberation: a
great panic, caused by a (relatively) petty defeat, not alleviated
by Athenian willingness to forget who started the war and who
abetted the butchery of the Plataeans, compelled the Spartans to
tolerate for a short while, as long as was absolutely necessary, a
§enerous policy. By his successes and his death Brasidas removed
that compulsion and rendered possible the Peace of Nicias and
therewith the return to Sparta of the prisoners taken on Sphacteria.
Yet Brasidas’ success was not Sparta’s success. How little the Greeks
believed that Sparta had been cleansed from the disgrace of Pylos
by Brasidas’ success is shown by the fact that in their view Sparta
was rehabilitated only by her victory at Mantinea: only in the
light of the victory at Mantinea did the Spartans’ failure at Pylos
appear to the other Greeks as having been caused by ill-luck and
not by decay (V 75.3).
The battle of Mantinea took place in the central year of the
Peloponnesian war, which lasted for twenty-seven years. The Spar-
tans were at war with Argos while the Athenians were allied with
both Sparta and Argos but in fact fighting on the side of Argos.
There had almost been a battle between the Spartans and the
Argives earlier in the year, but at the last moment the Spartan king
Agis and two Argive generals had concluded on their own a four-
month armistice. Agis’ action was strongly resented by the Spartans
with the result that they made an entirely new law according to
which the king’s power of making decisions was subject to control
“IV 84.2; cf, 98.2 and 88.3-4, Cf. also II 5.4-6.4 and III 97.2-98.4.
Cf. note 26 above.
®
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAE
by ten councilors elected by the city and accompanying him on the
campaigns (V 63). The new law of course did not affect the law
concerning the order of battle. Owing to the suddenness with which
the enemy appeared on the battlefield of Mantinea, if not to the
further fact that the Spartans were more frightened than ever
before in their memory, every one of them eagerly took his place,
well known to him in the traditional order of the army which
Thucydides describes in the center of his account of the fourteenth
year of the war.** He was able to describe the order in which the
* At the end of III Thucydides mentions the eruption of Mt. Aetna which
i took place in the spring before he mentions the end of the winter. “The
reason for this superficially illogical writing is clear: Thucydides did not want
to begin a new ‘book’ with the mention of an incident, the eruption of Etna,
| which, worth recording for its own sake, had nothing to do with the war; it
was best to tuck it away at the end of a ‘book’, even if that meant, strictly,
putting it in its wrong year . . .” Gomme II 704. Assuming that Gomme means
by a “book” the account of one year of the war, one must say that Thucydides
begins his account of the eighth year of the war with the mention of an eclipse
of the sun and of an earthquake—of natural phenomena which also occurred
in the spring and which also had apparently nothing to do with the war. The
end of III is the end of the account of the sixth year, of the only year the
account of which both almost begins (III 89) and literally ends with the men-
tion of natural phenomena; the account of the fifth year almost ends with the
mention of a natural phenomenon (III 88.3), The transition from the fifth to the
sixth year is the center of the first part of the war (cf. V 20). (The distinction
between the natural and that which is not natural, f.e. above all the conven-
tional, would seem to be the key to Thucydides’ “philosophy of history,” to a
teaching silently conveyed through a narrative which affects to come as close
as possible to a mere chronicle. The distinction mentioned is reflected in Thu-
cydides’ following the “natural” calendar [“according to summers and winters”
—V 20.2-3, 26.1] which is the same for Spartans and Athenians, for Gr
and Persians, as distinguished from any “conventional” and hence necessarily
local calendar. An ona had predicted that the war would last thrice nine
i years [26.4]. Thucydides opens his narrative of the tenth year [and only of
: that year] with the account of an act of piety [V 1] on the part of the Athe-
nians—of an act apparently connected with their sense of guilt [cf. V $2]. In
that account he refers back to an earlier event by using the phrase “as I have
i made clear before,” a phrase which occurs otherwise only in VI 94.1, #.e. the
beginning of the account of the eighteenth year of the war; near the end of
that account Thucydides speaks of the Spartan sense of guilt regarding the
war [VII 18.2, 4]. [For the connection between V 1 and VI 94.1, cf. also I
13.6.) Cf. also note 70 above. Another hint is conveyed by the fact that Thu-
cydides ends his account of each year sometimes with the phrase “this is the
end of the nth year of the war” and sometimes with the phrase “this is the
end of the nth year of the war which Thucydides has described.”) =~
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THE CITY AND MAN
two opposed armies were arranged but not to state the number of
fighters on each side: the number of the Spartans was unknown
because of the secretiveness that was due to their regime, and the
number of the others was concealed by their boasting. Yet since
the Spartan order never changes, Thucydides can figure out, or
enable his reader to figure out, the exact number of the Spartans
who took part in the battle.** The Spartans do not seem to have
been aware of the tension between secrecy and an unchangeable
order or of the fact that such a disorderly thing as unregulated
boasting can be more conducive to concealing the truth than any
regulations. Or, to take a less ridiculous example, while the Spartans
succeeded in concealing the manner in which they made 2,000
brave Helots vanish from sight, they did not succeed in. concealing
the fact that they had destroyed them (IV 80.4), since human
beings who are alive are likely to come to sight from time to time.
It is no accident that the two sole examples which Thucydides
adduces in order to show the ignorance of Greeks regarding con-
temporary things are Spartan (I 20.3): Spartan secretiveness leads
to ignorance regarding things Spartan, and given this ignorance
one does not, for obvious reasons, run a great risk in praising the
Spartans. Let us also remember here the Spartans’ ridiculous con-
cern with the ritual impurity of Pericles. To return to the battle of
Mantinea, whereas Sparta’s enemies advanced with passion, the
Spartans advanced slowly in accordance with their law.** Agis,
observing a danger which arises in every battle, tries to avert it by
giving novel orders without being interfered with by any of the
ten new councilors (cf. V 65.2). Two Spartan officers refuse to
obey (from cowardice, as their accusers successfully claimed after-
ward). As a consequence of their complete lack of experience (for
the commands were completely new and the new guardians of the
old were not effective), the Spartans would have lost the battle but
for the courage which they displayed at the critical moment (70-
72.2). We note in passing that Sparta lost the fruit of the splendid
victory in the year following (82-83). Thucydides does not claim
that his description of the battle of Mantinea is quite exact; the
truth of the description is comparable to the truth of the speeches;
“V 66-68. Cf. V 74 end and II 39.1.
"Cf, IV 108.6.
O24
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WARE
this may be one reason why he gives only summaries of the
speeches with which the commanders addressed their troops before
’ the battle (69, 74.1). At any rate the section of his work which
shows the complete restoration of Sparta’s renown and exhibits the
beauty of her order of battle, i.e. which is most in accordance with
the praise of Sparta near the beginning and near the end of his
work, reveals at the same time most clearly and specifically Spartan
ineptness, the Spartan comedy.
“The battle of Mantinea is succeeded by the dialogue between
the Athenians and the Melians which in its turn is succeeded by the
Sicilian expedition. The dialogue on Melos separates the Spartan
comedy from the Athenian tragedy. Thucydides as it were bids us
compare “Sicily” with “Pylos” (VII 71.7) on the one hand and with
“Mycalessus” (VII 29-30) on the other. Compared with the fate
of the Athenians in Sicily, the fate of the Spartans on Sphacteria is
indeed laughable. The fate of Mycalessus on the other hand is no
less worthy of compassion than that of the Athenians in Sicily.
Yet the latter is more deeply moving than the former. The reason
would seem to be that the Mycalessians in no way deserved their
unfathomable misfortune by any act of hybris whereas the Athenian
disaster was the consequence of ‘grave mistakes, of guilt: Sicily
follows immediately on Melos. No one can read Thucydides’ ac-
count of the Sicilian disaster with the feeling that the Athenians
got what they deserved; to say the least, the disaster was not pro-
portionate to the fault; this feeling is expressed by Nicias in accord-
ance with his way of thinking ( VII 77.1, 3-4). Of Nicias Thucydides
says that he deserved his misfortune least of all the Greeks of his
time (VII 86.5). He suggests a similar judgment regarding the
Athenians. Yet the case of the Athenians is radically different from
that of Nicias. Nicias did not deserve his misfortune because of his
full dedication to law-bred virtue. Athens’ nobility was of an entirely
different kind, of a nobler kind. The Sicilian expedition, undertaken
against the will of Nicias, originated in the nobility of her daring—
of her willingness to risk everything for the sake of everlasting
glory, of her love of the beauty of everlasting glory which Pericles
had praised (II 64.3-6). Just as the Funeral Speech is followed by
the plague, the Melian dialogue is followed by the Sicilian expedi-
tion. The Sicilian expedition, or rather its cause, not only the stasis,
is a kind of grave sickness but a noble sickness. Thucydides speaks
225
THE CITY AND MAN
of the eros of the Athenians for the Sicilian expedition.“ Pericles
had called upon the Athenians to become lovers (erastai) of their
city (II 43.1). It was the community of lovers of their city who
desired to adorn their beloved with the jewel Sicily. One could say
that “Athens in Sicily” is greater than Pericles’ Athens according to
Pericles himself: it surpasses all other “everlasting memorials of
evils” (II 41.4) which Athens has left anywhere. The eros of the
Athenian for Sicily is the peak of his eros for his city, and that eros
is his full dedication to his city, the willingness to sacrifice, to forget
everything private for the sake of the city, a willingness which finds
an appropriate and hence not unambiguous expression in what
Pericles says in his Funeral Speech about the aged parents, the
widows, and the orphans of the fallen soldiers. Or, as Alcibiades
indicates, only glory after death brings about the perfect harmony
between the private and the public (VI 16.5). If the highest eros
is that for the city and if the city reaches its peak in an eros like
that of Athens for Sicily, eros is of necessity tragic or, as Plato
seems to suggest, the city is the tragedy par excellence.*’ In accord-
ance with all this, Athens’ defeat is her triumph: her enemies have
to become in a manner Athenians in order to defeat her;** she is
defeated because she has succeeded in becoming the teacher of
Hellas. As for Sparta, her victory, whether due to Apollo or not,
is of interest only as the reverse side of Athens’ defeat.
9. The Questionable Universalism of the City .
The reasoning which culminates in the opposition of the Spartan
comedy and the Athenian tragedy starts from the “Athenian” as-
sumption that precisely regarding the city the noble cannot be
reduced to the pleasant and is superior to it. That assumption will
also lead one to question the seemingly inhuman judgment on the
choice made by the Melians to which we were led by starting from
the assumption common to the Athenians and Thucydides which
“VI 24.38. This is the only time that Thucydides himself uses the noén
eros. Only one of his characters uses that noun: Diodotus (III 45.5). When
speaking against the Sicilian expedition Nicias blames the dyserotes tén apon-
ton (VI 13.1).
* Laws 817b.
"Cf. I 71.3 with VII 21.3-4; 36.2, 4; 37.1; 40.2; 55.
226
BEEU Ee
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
finds its clearest expression in what the Athenians say against the
Melians’ resolve. We must therefore take a further step. That neces-
sity derives also from these considerations: according to Thucydides
the Sicilian expedition was not doomed to failure or its failure
cannot be explained by Athenian hybris however noble; the account
of the Sicilian expedition is not the end of Thucydides’ work; the
agreement between Thucydides and Pericles is less complete than
the argument of the preceding section assumed. In a word, that
argument is too “poetic” in Thucydides’ sense to be in ultimate
agreement with his thought.®*
According to Pericles, the present splendor of Athens gives rise
“If Thucydides has left his work unfinished, it does not follow that he
did not intend to end it in the manner in which, and with the sentence or
word with which, the version as we have it ends: an earlier version may cover
the whole ground which the final version is intended to cover; the earlier
version would differ from the final version only in lacking the final polish. It
is, then, necessary to wonder whether the eighth book may not have been
intended to be the last book. The core of the work is the two sequels “Funeral
Speech-Plague” and “Melian Dialogue-Sicilian Disaster.” These sequels suggest
in the first. place the “Spartan” notion of “moderation and the divine law.” At
closer inspection one sees “the Spartan comedy and the Athenian tragedy.”
The eighth book shows that this second thought too is “a beautiful falsehood”:
Athens does not go down; Athens’ defeat in the Peloponnesian war is not the
consequence of her failure in Sicily; she still could have won the war in the
manner in which Pericles had planned to win it. The core of the Spartan
comedy is “Pylos-Mantinea”; but “Mantinea” is also the non-comical restoration
of Sparta’s renown after Pylos. There is a corresponding non-tragic restoration
of Athens’ renown after Sicily: Kynossema (cf. VIII 106.2, 5 with V 75.3).
To state the case in a formula—Pylos : Mantinea = Sicily : Kynossema.
Athens’ restoration after Sicily is, to say the least, not unconnected with the
change from the democracy to the polity of 411 (VIII 97) which change in
its turn is, to say the least, not unconnected with the return of Alcibiades from
Sparta to Athens (86.4-8): the impious Alcibiades (53.2) restores moderation
in Athens (cf. also 45.2, 4-5). The absence of speeches from VITI—with the
exception, which is not negligible, of the excerpt from Pisander’s speech in
58.8, a speech making clear the decisive importance for Athens’ hope of the
recall of Alcibiades and the modification of the democracy—together with the
absence of speeches from V 10-84—helps to bring out the unity and the
lustre of “the Melian Dialogue and the Sicilian Disaster.” (As for the mean-
ingful character of the end of VIII, consider also the reference to the Athe-
nians’ purification of Delos in 108.4.) Xenophon’s account of the end of the
Peloponnesian war, #.e. his implicit account of why Athens lost the war, is in
full agreement with Thucydides; see especially Hellenica II 1.25-26 and
context.
227
THE CITY AND MAN
to the universal renown which she enjoys at present, and the
splendor and the renown together vouch for her everlasting and
universal fame in the future. She possesses universal control of the
sea. She was or is present in every land. Her empire extends over
more Greeks than any other Greek empire ever did, and if she
wishes, it is susceptible of still further expansion. During the Pelo-
ponnesian war the conquest of Sicily, Carthage, and the whole
mainland of Greece is already envisaged. The longing for sempi-
ternal and universal fame points towards universal rule; the con-
cern with sempiternal and universal fame calls for boundless striv-
ing for ever more; it is wholly incompatible with moderation.
The universalism of Athens, the universalism of the city (as dis-
tinguished from the desire for a limited goal like the rule over
Sicily) is doomed to failure. It points therefore to a universalism
of a different kind. Pericles says that the Athenians have left
everywhere sempiternal memorials of evil things (which they in-
flicted on others or suffered themselves) and of good ones (of
victories they gained and of benefits they bestowed). Thucydides
on the other hand calls his work a sempiternal possession which
is useful (1 22.4, II 41.4). Memorials are only to be looked at;
possessions are owned. Memorials are very visible or obvious and
they are not useful; a possession need not be obvious in order
to be useful. Memorials are ambiguous and for show; a useful
possession is of unambiguous solidity. The difference between
the sempiternal memorials of evil things and of good ones and
the sempiternal possession which is useful points to the differ-
ence between the brilliant and sham universalism of the city
and the genuine universalism of understanding. For Thucydides
bases. his claim on behalf of his work on the fact that it
brings to light the sempiternal and universal nature of man as
the ground of the deeds, the speeches, and the thoughts which
it records.
In the light of the full difference between the universalism of
thought and the universalism of the city we understand Thucydides’
agreement, not with Sparta, but with that moderation and piety by
which Sparta claimed to be guided and which reveals itself less
ambiguously in Nicias than in Sparta. It is hard but not altogether
misleading to say that for Thucydides the pious understanding or
judgment is true if for the wrong reasons; not the gods but nature
"IE 41.4; 62.2, 4; 64.8, 5; VI 15.2, 84.2, 90.2-8, VII 66.2.
228
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
sets limits to what the city can reasonably attempt. Moderation is
conduct in accordance with the nature of human things. The agree-
ment between Thucydides and “Sparta” is reflected in the agree-
ment between the men of noble simplicity and the men of Odyssean
versatility who both become the victims of ruthless men with second-
rate minds in times of civil discord (III 83). But the agreement
between Thucydides and the Spartans, or the Melians, or Nicias,
must not blind us to the fact that there is an equally important
agreement among all political men, the Athenians included, by
virtue of which they all differ from Thucydides. There is indeed a
primary opposition between those (the Spartans, Nicias, the Melians)
who merely wish to preserve the present or available things and
those (the Athenians) who are haunted by the hope for immanifest
future things. But on closer inspection the former too prove to
depend on such hope.*! In a language which is not that of Thu-
cydides, there is something reminding of religion in Athenian im-
perialism.”
We must not forget however the kinship between the universal-
ism of thought (Thucydides) and the universalism of the city
(Athens )—a kinship which Thucydides has indicated most clearly
by establishing some agreement between his archeology and the
Funeral Speech. There is indeed a profound kinship between Thu-
cydides’ thought and the daring which is characteristic of Athens.
However ambiguous that daring, that mania, which transcends the
limits of moderation, may be on the political plane, it comes into
its own, or is in accordance with nature, on the plane of thought,
of the thinking individual. It comes into its own, not in Periclean
(or post-Periclean) Athens as such but in the thought or the work
of Thucydides. Not Periclean Athens but the understanding which is
possible on the basis of Periclean Athens is the peak. Not Periclean
Athens but the work of Thucydides is the peak. Thucydides redeems
* Cf. I 70.2, 7, V 87, 103.2, 113, VI 81.6, 93.
" The opposition and the agreement in the decisive respect between Peri-
cles and Nicias may be illustrated by the following facts. Pericles avoids
speaking of death and the dead in his Funeral Speech; the Funeral Speech is
followed by the plague with its abundance of dead. Nicias in a way abandoned
the fruit of his victory over the Corinthians by asking them for permission to
collect two corpses which the Athenians had left behind (IV 44.5-6); at the
end of his career, in Sicily, he was unable to arrange for the burial of the
unnumbered Athenian corpses which were not in the hands of the enemy (VII
72.2, 75.3, 87.2).
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Periclean Athens, And only by redeeming it does he preserve it “for
ever.” As little as there would be an Achilles or an Odysseus for us
without Homer, as little would there be a Pericles for us without
Thucydides: the everlasting glory for which Pericles longed is
achieved not by Pericles but by Thucydides. The political daring
and the virtues and vices which go with it make possible the high-
est daring. Understanding the universal and sempiternal things,
seeing through the delusions by which the healthy city stands or
falls, is possible only for thinkers who ride a tiger. One must go
beyond this. In Athens the two heterogeneous universalisms become
in a way fused: the fantastic political universalism becomes tinged,
colored, suffused, transfigured by the true universalism, by the love
of beauty and of wisdom as Thucydides understands beauty. and
wisdom, and it thus acquires its tragic character; it thus becomes
able to foster a manly gentleness. The “synthesis” of the two uni-
versalisms is indeed impossible. It is of the utmost importance that
this impossibility be understood. Only by understanding it can one
understand the grandeur of the attempt to overcome it and sensibly
admire it.
If the city cannot be understood except in the light of the uni-
versalism peculiar to it toward which it tends, and if that universal-
ism in its turn by its essential defect points to the universalism of
thought, we understand why Thucydides could present his whole
wisdom in the form of a narrative interspersed with speeches which
is severely limited to things political, which is severely political—
which is silent about what is at present called Athenian culture.
For many of our contemporaries that silence is not qualified, as it
should be, by what he says and indicates about his work, his logos,
for they understand the remarks in question as “methodological.”
Yet he does not only speak, however laconically, about his work
and thought; as we have tried to show, he presents his thought,
even his education, and therewith “Athenian culture.” Through his
work he makes us, in the light of the interplay of motion and rest,
understand war and peace, barbarism and Greekness, Sparta and
Athens; he enables us to understand, as far as in him lies, the nature
of human life or to become wise. But one cannot become wise
through understanding Thucydides’ thought without realizing at the
same time that it is through understanding Thucydides’ thought
that one is becoming wise, for wisdom is inseparable from self-
knowledge. We know from Thucydides himself that he was an
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THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
Athenian. Through understanding him we see that his wisdom was
made possible by “the sun” and by Athens—by her power and
wealth, by her defective polity, by her spirit of daring innovation,
by her active doubt of the divine law. By understanding his work
one sees with one’s own eyes that Athens was in a sense the home
of wisdom. Only through becoming wise oneself can one recognize
wisdom in others. Wisdom cannot be presented as a spectacle, in
the way in which battles and the like can be presented. Wisdom
cannot be “said.” It can only be “done.” Only through understanding
Thucydides’ work can one see that Athens was in a sense the school
of Hellas; from Pericles’ mouth we merely hear it asserted. Wisdom
cannot be presented by being spoken about. An indirect proof of
this is the insipid and at best shallow character of the chapters on
the intellectual life of this period or that which form part of other-
wise good modern histories.
One is led toward the deepest stratum in Thucydides’ thought
when one considers the tension between his explicit praise of Sparta
—of Spartan moderation—which is not matched by a praise of
Athens on the one hand, and on the other, the thesis of the arche-
ology as a whole regarding the weakness of the ancients—a thesis
which implies the certainty of progress and therewith the praise of
innovating Athens. Thucydides does not unqualifiedly identify him-
self with “Athens.” We must therefore reconsider the thesis of the
archeology. The archeology sketches the emergence of Greekness,
power, and wealth out of original barbarism, weakness, and poverty;
it thus creates the impression that barbarism belongs together with
weakness and poverty or that non-Greeks are pre-political savages
(I 6.1, 5-6). It barely hints at the fact that there were powerful
and wealthy non-Greek societies before there were any such Greek
societies (I 9.2, 11.1-2, 13 end). Yet by admitting that some non-
Greeks were civilized before Greeks one does not question the belief
in progress. This belief is questioned not by Thucydides himself but
by Diodotus. Still, Diodotus’ speech reveals more of Thucydides
himself than does any other speech. That speech contrasted with
Cleon’s speech which it opposes as well as with the Thebans’ speech
accusing the Plataeans reveals itself as a characteristically Athenian
act—as no less characteristic of Athens than the Sicilian expedition
but differing from the Sicilian expedition because it is inspired by
moderation and mildness. It ought not to be surprising that the only
action recorded by Thucydides which properly reflects his thought
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THE CITY AND MAN
on the political plane is an act of humanity which is compatible
with the survival of Athens and even of her empire.
In order to prevent the killing of the Mytileneans which was
favored by Cleon, Diodotus must first combat Cleon’s denigration
of his opponents and especially his calumniation of them as
prompted by discreditable, selfish interest. Cleon’s manner of pro-
ceeding is harmful to the city; it causes suspicion and fear and thus
deprives the city of good advice. The city must give a fair and
equal hearing to everyone who is willing to give his advice. In
order to prevent the giving of advice under the influence of selfish
motives, out of concern for the adviser’s own aggrandizement or
prestige, a sensible or moderate city would not honor a man more
when he gives good advice, i.e. when his proposal is approved by
the assembly, and less when he gives bad advice, i.e. when his pro-
posal is rejected by the assembly; for if the suggested practice were
followed, men would not speak for or against proposals merely in
order to please the assembly (III 42). Diodotus seems to argue for
complete equality, for the abolition even of that distinction by
which democracy stands or falls, the distinction between the popular
and the unpopular, between the honest men or friends of the demos
and the corrupt men or enemies of the demos. If not every member
of the assembly, at any rate every speaker must be treated as being
equally competent and honest as every other; only in this way can
ambition, striving for superiority and hence for inequality be eradi-
cated. He simultaneously indicates the fact that citizens who are
not wise cannot distinguish between good and bad advice but must
identify good advice with advice convincing them or appealing to
them, and leaves in the dark the fact that a speaker whose proposals
are frequently approved by the assembly cannot fail to be regarded
as wise and hence to gain prestige, and therefore that a man who
is to the slightest degree ambitious will inevitably try to increase
his prestige by making proposals which please the multitude. Differ-
ently stated, the prestige of Diodotus cannot well coexist with the
prestige of Cleon: Diodotus himself is compelled to suggest, in con-
tradiction to the principle which he advocates, that Cleon is either
stupid or dishonest. Gomme underestimates the bearing of Diodotus’
statement by saying that he “comes close to questioning the value
of free debate.” Diodotus adumbrates the problem of democracy in
such a manner as to point to the regime in which only moderate
and sensible men, in no way tainted by ambition, would have a
232
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
say.** Yet surely Athens is not “a moderate city” and Diodotus is
compelled to persuade the Athenians to act moderately toward the
Mytileneans. He illustrates his difficulty and his manner of overcom-
ing it by speaking of the case wherein a speaker admittedly gives
sound advice yet is suspected of giving that advice for the sake of
his private gain; in that case the Athenians reject the sound advice
out of envy. The demos is then not as good-natured as Cleon had
maintained (III 38.2). From not entirely pure motives, democratic
assemblies are more concemed with purity of a certain kind than
with wisdom. Since they will not vote for a proposal unless they
have trust in the proposer, and since they trust.on grounds which
are so little rational, not only bad men but good men as well are
compelled to deceive the assembly and to lie to it. Perhaps one
cannot benefit any city without deceiving it, for no city is likely to
consist chiefly of perfectly wise and virtuous people; one surely
cannot benefit Athens without deceiving her, one reason being that
only the speakers are held responsible for what they propose and
how they propose it whereas the assembly, the sovereign, has no
responsibility (III 43). With an unheard of frankness,** Diodotus
tells the Athenians that only by using a subterfuge will he be able
to plead successfully for the mild treatment of the Mytileneans.
The subterfuge which Diodotus uses seems to consist in replacing
the question of justice (are the Mytileneans guilty?) by the ques-
tion of expediency (does Athens derive benefit from killing them?)
(III 44). Yet why is that substitution a subterfuge? In order to lay
a foundation for the proposal not to kill the Mytileneans, Diodotus
raises the broad question as to whether capital punishment is expe-
dient or wise under any circumstances: in order to be wise, capital
punishment must have a deterring effect which it does not have as
is shown by the fact that capital crimes are frequently committed;
* Cleon may be said to state and to solve the problem as follows: you
know your own limitations, you know that you lack judgment and therefore
that you must trust others; but lacking judgment you cannot distinguish be-
tween those who deserve your trust and those who do not; I give you a cri-
terion which you can understand: trust only people of your kind, people with-
out refinement, people like me; to enable you to distinguish between me and
other vulgarians, I tell you that I possess the Periclean quality of not being
fickle.
“ What Pericles says in I] 62.1 approaches the trivial compared with what
Diodotus says in III 43.2-3.
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THE CITY AND MAN
nomos is powerless against human physis (45). Whatever this argu-
ment may be worth in itself, its use in the circumstances seems to
reveal no small lack of intelligence: by bidding the Athenians not
to kill the Mytileneans on the ground that capital punishment
is bad altogether, he preposterously bids them simultaneously to
abolish capital punishment for murder, impiety, high treason, and
other heinous crimes; he suggests that the Mytileneans are guilty of
a capital crime according to the accepted standards. Yet he knows
what he is doing. His statement about capital punishment implies
that capital crimes are involuntary and hence, as Cleon had ad-
mitted, deserve pardon (40.1; cf. 39.2); it thus suggests that, assum-
ing that the Mytileneans had committed a capital crime, they
deserve pardon. He thus prepares his later questioning of that
assumption or his proof that the majority of the Mytileneans had
not committed a crime and therefore that the Athenians would
commit a crime by killing them (47.3; cf. 46.5). He is then very
far from simply disregarding, as he claims, the question of justice.
Cleon had based his argument above all on the consideration cf
justice and secondarily on the consideration of expediency; he had
ruled out of court the consideration of compassion and mildness as
wholly incompatible with empire (40.2-3). Replying to Cleon and
knowing the nature of the city, Diodotus refuses to appeal to the
Athenians’ compassion or mildness (48.1) without saying however
that compassion and mildness have no place whatever in an empire,
and he pretends to outdo Cleon by disregarding justice altogether
and by considering expediency alone while however taking up the
question of justice after he has put his audience in a mood in which
it is willing to listen to a plea of innocence. He prepares that mood
by vaguely suggesting that the Mytileneans might deserve pardon
although they were guilty of a capital crime.
Diodotus’ statement about capital punishment calls for special
attention. Within that statement, almost literally in the center of
his whole speech, he suggests that punishments were “softer” in the
past, that in the olden times even the gravest crimes were not
punished capitally, that realizing the ineffectiveness of soft punish-
ments human beings first introduced capital punishment and then
progressively extended capital punishment to ever more crimes
(45.3). Men do not realize that punishment does not deter men
from crimes because nature compels men to commit crimes or
because nomos is powerless against physis. They expect more from
234
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
nomos now than in the olden times. In the oldest times, at the
beginning, there was no nomos because there were no cities;
there was no punishment proper; abstracting from everything else
one might say that the first age was the age of Kronos. There
surely has taken place a progress of the arts (and hence of power
and wealth); but it would be wrong to believe that that progress is
simply a progress in mildness.** The progress of art is accompanied
by a progress of nomos—of law doing violence to nature, if only by
concealing nature. Men are not simply milder now when Greekness
is at its peak as is shown abundantly by Thucydides. The belief
that man is at the peak now is therefore in need of qualification or
revision. The difference between the wise and the unwise—that
difference which makes it impossible for a wise man to benefit his
city except by deceiving it—is not affected by the progress of the
arts or of the laws. Men are not simply wiser and gentler than they
were in the olden times. The belief in progress must be qualified
with a view to the fact that human nature does not change.
It could seem that Thucydides himself confirms or at least illus-
trates Diodotus’ thesis by his narrative of the Athenians’ purification
of Apollo’s island which they undertook in compliance with an
oracle (III 104). The tyrant Pisistratus had purified a part of the
island; in the sixth year of the Peloponnesian war the Athenians
purified the entire island. In the preceding year the plague had
smitten them again and many earthquakes had occurred (87). Per-
haps they felt guilty (cf. V 32). At any rate, for the sake of Delos’
holiness, they forbade that anyone die or be born on the island;
the dying and the women about to give birth were to be brought
to another island close by which the tyrant Polycrates had dedi-
cated to Apollo. After having purified the island, the Athenians
instituted the Delian festival. In the olden times there had been a
festival there which included an athletic and a music contest-as well
as performances of choruses sent by the cities of Ionia and the
neighboring islands. This fact is proved by Homer of whom Thu-
cydides here quotes thirteen verses whereas in the whole rest of his
book he quotes only a single Homeric verse (I 9.4). The verses
stand out from the rest of the work because they conjure an
altogether peaceful scene. Homer exhorts the maidens who had
participated in the Delian festival tq remember him and to praise
“ Cf. Plato, Protagoras 327c4-e3.
235
THE CITY AND MAN
him as the sweetest and most enjoyable minstrel who frequently
visited Delos. In post-Homeric times “the contests” ceased as a
consequence of adversities. But now, in the sixth year of the Pelo-
ponnesian war, the Athenians restored the “contests” and added
horse-races as an entirely novel feature. It is not clear whether the
modern Delian festival surpasses the ancient. The horse-races surely
constitute a progress;°* but will they compensate for the absence
of a Homer?*
10. Political History and Political Philosophy
Thucydides is not merely a political man who as such belongs to
this city or that, but a historian who as such does not belong to
any one city. Moreover, he is a historian who sees the singulars in
the light of clearly grasped universals, the changing in the light of
the permanent or sempiternal, of human nature as part of the whole
which is characterized by the interplay between motion and rest;
he is a philosophic historian, His thought is therefore not radically
alien to that of Plato and Aristotle. It is true that he leaves matters
at intimating what he regards as the originating principles whereas
the philosophers make those principles their theme or, in other
words, that it is evidently necessary to go beyond Thucydides
toward the philosophers; but this does not mean that there is an
opposition between Thucydides and the philosophers. What is true
"Cf, Plato, Republic 328a1-5.
™ The account of the sixth year of the war or more precisely III 86-116 is
characterized by the fact that “the interruption of the narrative for the sake
of chronological order is carried to an extreme in the account of this campaign
[in Sicily], and, since the campaign is not of the first importance and not very
interesting, might, if taken by itself, justify Dionysius’ and others’ criticism of
Thucydides’ ‘unfortunate. chronological manner’.” Gomme II 413. The fact
mentioned is all the more striking since precisely in this context, in what one
might call his third preface (III 90.1), Thucydides declares that as regards
the things which happened in Sicily he will make mention only of the most
memorable things among those which affected the Athenians. (As regards his
“second preface,” cf. p. 8 above.) The account given in III 86-116 consists
of 15 items, 6 referring to Sicily, 8 to natural phenomena, and 1 to the puri-
fication of Delos. Demosthenes’ campaign in Aetolia (including the only men-
tion of Hesiod occurring in the book) is the central item. If one disregards
the account of the purification of Delos one observes a strange regularity
regarding the accounts of the Sicilian campaign on the one hand and those
of natural phenomena on the other. Cf. also notes 10 and 83 above.
236
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WARE
of philosophy in general is true of political philosophy in particular.
If one does not limit oneself to contrasting easily quotable judg-
ments of Thucydides and Plato on men like Themistocles and Peri-
cles, if one considers that all these judgments are elliptical, and if
therefore one ponders them, one realizes that the two thinkers are ~
in fundamental agreement regarding the good and bad and the
noble and base. It suffices to remind the reader of what the two _
thinkers indicate in regard to the order of rank of Sparta and Athens. ' -
Yet there is this difference between them: whereas Plato raises and
answers the question of the best regime simply, Thucydides answers
only the question as to the best regime which Athens had in his
lifetime (VIII 97.2); but here again it is evidently necessary to go
beyond Thucydides toward the philosophers who thematically dis-
cuss the question of the best regime simply. All of this amounts
to saying that Thucydides’ thought is inferior to Plato’s thought. Or
could Thucydides have had a positive reason for stopping on his
ascent earlier than Plato?
One must compare comparable things. Thucydides did not write
Socratic dialogues and Plato did not write an account of a contem-
porary war. But Plato in the third book of the Laws has sketched
the development from the barbarism of the beginning up to the
century in which he and Thucydides were born, and this sketch
is comparable to Thucydides’ archeology. In fact, apart from the
Menexenus, which calls for comparison with the Funeral Speech,
that sketch is the only part of Plato’s works which lends itself to a
direct and instructive confrontation with a part of Thucydides’
work. As one ought to mention even in the most cursory remark,
both archeologies have also in common that they equally spare
Spartan feelings. We stress here only one point. Plato explains how
the good Athenian regime which obtained at the time of the Persian
war, the ancestral regime, was transformed into the extreme democ-
racy of his time. He traces this change to the wilful disregard of the
ancestral law regarding music and the theater: by making no longer
the best and the wisest but the audience at large the judges of
songs and plays, Athens decayed.®* Shortly thereafter he contends
that it was not the naval victory at Salamis but the land victories
at Marathon and Plataeae which saved Greece.** These judgments
* Laws 698a9ff., 700a5~701c4.
* Ibid. 707a5-c7.
237
THE CITY AND MAN
are in striking contrast to Thucydides’ suggestions. On the basis of
Thucydides one would rather have to say that the Athenians had
no choice but to wage the battle of Salamis and, one thing leading
to another, they were compelled to build the most powerful navy;
for the navy they needed the poorest Athenians as oarsmen; they
were therefore compelled to give the poor a much higher status in
Athens than they had previously enjoyed: Athens was compelled
to become a democracy; the democratization of Athens was not, as
Plato wishes us to believe, an act of wilful folly or of choice but a
necessity. Generally stated, it could appear that Plato in contra-
distinction to Thucydides makes too little allowance for fatality as
distinguished from choice. In fact however there is no fundamental
difference in this respect between the two thinkers. In the -very
context just referred to, Plato says that it is chance rather than
man or human wisdom or folly which establishes regimes or which
legislates. In other words, man is a kind of plaything of the gods.’
Plato adds indeed that within very narrow limits men have a choice
between different regimes. But this is not denied by Thucydides.
Hence he cannot deny that it is necessary to raise the question of
the best regime. One may say that this question is explicitly
answered by such Thucydidean speakers as Athenagoras and Peri-
cles but it is surely not even explicitly raised by Thucydides himself.
He prefers a mixture of oligarchy and democracy to either of the
pure forms but it is not clear whether he would unqualifiedly prefer
that mixture to an intelligent and virtuous tyranny; he seems to
doubt whether a regime superior to these two—aristocracy in Plato's
or Aristotle’s sense—would be possible. He surely never speaks in
his own name of a virtuous city whereas he speaks of virtuous
individuals. There seems to be, according to him, something in the
nature of the city which prevents it from rising to the height to
which a man may rise.
When Thucydides speaks in the first book of the causes or justi-
fications of the Peloponnesian war, he stresses three of them: the -
Spartans’ fear of Athens’ increasing power, the breach of the treaty,
and the pollution contracted at the time of Cylon. He does not
speak there with equal emphasis of a fourth cause or justification
which would seem to be the most noble: the liberation of the Greek
cities from Athens’ tyranny. This cause is based on the premise that,
*” Ibid. 709a1-8; cf. 644d7-e4 and 808c4-5.
238
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
as of right, every city is independent or is an equal member of the
whole comprising all Greek cities, regardless of whether .it is large
or small, strong or weak, rich or poor. Accordingly there is a good
common to all Greek cities which should limit the ambitions of
each. The self-sufficiency of the city as Plato and Aristotle pre-
suppose it excludes the city’s dependence on such a society of cities
or its being essentially a member of it. Aristotle goes so far as to
visualize a perfectly good city which has no “foreign relations”
whatever.’ The lesson of Thucydides’ work as a whole may be
said to be that the order of cities which is presupposed in the most
noble Spartan proclamations is altogether impossible, given the
unequal power of the different cities which inevitably leads to the
consequence that the most powerful cities cannot help being hege-
monial or even imperial. But that lesson also renders questionable
a presupposition of classical political philosophy; it excludes the
kind of self-sufficiency of the city which classical political philoso-
phy presupposes. The city is neither self-sufficient nor is it essen-
tially a part of a good or just order comprising many or all cities.
The lack of order which necessarily characterizes the “society” of
the cities or, in other words, the omnipresence of War puts a much
lower ceiling on the highest aspiration of any city toward justice
and virtue than classical political philosophy might seem to have
admitted.
Most of the speeches and all debates occurring in Thucydides’
work deal with foreign politics, with what a given city or group of
cities ought to do in regard to another city or group of cities. But
the subject of debates is whatever is in the foreground of attention
or is primary for the citizen. For the city which is not on the verge
of civil war or in it, the most important questions concern its rela-
tions with other cities. Not without reason does Thucydides make
his Diodotus call freedom (i.e. freedom from foreign domination)
and empire “the greatest things” (III 45.6). Generally speaking,
even the lowliest men prefer being subjects to men of their own
people rather than to any aliens. If this is so, foreign politics is
primary “for us,” although it may not be primary “in itself” or “by
nature.” Thucydides does not rise to the heights of classical political
philosophy because he is more concerned than is classical political
philosophy with what is “first for us” as distinguished from what
** Politics 1825b23-32.
239
THE CITY AND MAN
is “first by nature.” Philosophy is the ascent from what is first for us
to what is first by nature. This ascent requires that what is first
for us be understood as adequately as possible in the manner in
which it comes to sight prior to the ascent. In other words, political
understanding or political science cannot start from seeing the city
as the Cave but it must start from seeing the city as a world, as the
highest in the world; it must start from seeing man as completely
immersed in political life: “the present war is the greatest war.”
Classical political philosophy presupposes the articulation of this
beginning of political understanding but it does not exhibit it as
Thucydides does in an unsurpassable, nay, unrivalled manner. The
quest for that “common sense” understanding of political things
which led us first to Aristotle’s Politics, leads us eventually to
Thucydides’ War of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians.
Yet most of the time the city is at peace. Most of the time the
city is not immediately exposed to that violent teacher War, and to
unsought compulsions, and hence the city’s inhabitants are of
kindlier thoughts than they are when at war (III 82.2). Accordingly
most of the time they are given to admiration of the ancient, of the
ancestral, rather than to immersion in the present (I 21.2). Not
being prompted to take violent courses, they praise and even prac-
tice moderation and obedience to the divine law. Neither according
to the classical philosophers? nor according to Thucydides is the
concern with the divine simply the primary concern of the city, but
the fact that it is primary “for us,” from the point of view of the
city, is brought out more clearly by Thucydides than by the phi-
losophers. It suffices to remember what Thucydides tells us about
oracles, earthquakes, and eclipses, Nicias’ deeds and sufferings, the
Spartans’ compunctions, the affair of Cylon, the aftermath of the
battle of Delium, and the purification of Delos—in brief, all these
things for which the modern scientific historian has no use or which
annoy him, and to which classical political philosophy barely alludes
because for it the concern with the divine has become identical
with philosophy. We would have great difficulty in doing justice
to this remote or dark side of the city but for the work of men like
Fustel de Coulanges above all others who have made us see the
city as it primarily understood itself as distinguished from the
manner in which it was exhibited by classical political philosophy:
7 Cf, Politics 1828b11-12.
240
THUCYDIDES’ PELOPONNESIAN WAR
the holy city in contradistinction to the natural city. Our gratitude
is hardly diminished by the fact that Fustel de: Coulanges, his illus-
; ; '
that understanding which is inherent in the city as such, in the pre-
philosophic city, according to which the city. sees itself as subject
and subservient to the divine in the ordinary understanding of the
divine or looks up to it. Only by beginning at this point will we be
open to the full impact of the all-important question which is coeval
with philosophy although the philosophers do not frequently pro-
nounce it—the question quid sit 3
Bhi
Index
Aeschylus, 88
Anaxagoras, 28, 161, 219
Aristophanes, 80 n., 61, 62, 151 n., 218 n.
Aristotle, 12-49, 50, 51, 52 n., 63 n., 75 n., 76, 78 n., 85, 93, 110, 114, 119,
122, 127, 139, 142-43, 144, 146, 16], 169, 189 n., 190 n, 196 n., 236,
238, 239, 240
Augustine, 32 n.
Averroés, 26 n., 27 n.
Burckhardt, Jakob, 83 n.
Burke, 33 n.
Burnet, John, 52 n.
Cervantes, 158
Cicero, 13, 18, 23 n., 28 n., 86 n., 68 n., 73 n., 89 n, 138, 158 n.
Classen-Steup, 158 n.
Coulanges, Fustel de, 240-41
Demosthenes, 194 n.
Engels, 40 n.
Euripides, 160 n.
Fichte, 40 n.
248
INDEX
Gomme, A. W., 158 n., 166 n., 172 n., 178 n., 180 n., 208 n., 228 n., 232, 296 n.
Gorgias, 23
Hegel, 83 n., 40 n., 241
Hellanicus, 181
Heraclitus, 22 n.
Herodotus, 35, 143, 181
Hesiod, 130, 131, 236 n.
Hippodamus, 17-28
Hobbes, 44 n., 88-89, 143-44, 219
Homer, 53, 157-58, 160, 165, 182 n., 218, 285-86
Hyperides, 194 n,
Isaiah, 190 n.
Isocrates, 17 n., 22 n., 154
Kant, 89, 128 n.
Leibniz, 39 n.
Lipsius, Justus, 144
Locke, 44 n.
Lucretius, 151 n.
Lysias, 63 n., 194 n.
Machiavelli, 17, 23, 28, 198 n.
Marcellinus, Ammianus, 144
Marx, 40 n., 188
More, Sir Thomas, 61
Nietzsche, 44, 186
Parmenides, 174 n.
Pascal, 18
£44
INDEX
Pindar, 23, 190 n.
Plato, 14, 17 n, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24 n., 26, 27, 29, 30 n., 92, $3 n,,
86 n., 37, $9, 42 n., 49, 50-138, 189-41, 143, 146, 155 n., 172 n, 191 n.,
194 n., 200 n., 212 n., 218 n., 226, 235 n., 236-39
Plutarch, 153 n., 161 n.
Protagoras, 161
Reinhardt, Karl, 145 n.
Rousseau, 28, 40, 102 n.
Shakespeare, 50, 59
Simonides, 69-70
Sophocles, 24 n., 96 n., 219
Spengler, 2
Spinoza, 15 n., 44 n.
Stoics, 27
Thomas Aquinas, 22 n., 26 n., 27 n., 29 n., 84, 39, 49 n., 68 n.
Thucydides, 182 n., 139-241
Xenophon, 13 n,, 20 n., 23, 30 n, 47 n, 53-54, 56, 57, 61, 63 n., 65, 73 n,,
75 n., 178 n., 189 n., 227 n.
245
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